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IMPROVEMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


HEARING BEFORE COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS, HOUSE 
OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

Washington, D. C., Tuesday , February 2,190 i. 

The committee met at 10.30 o’clock a. m., Hon. Theodore E. 
Burton in the chair. 

The Chairman. Mr. Parker, how much time is required by you ? 

Mr. Parker. I should say that we have six speakers, and they will 
take not exceeding fifteen minutes apiece. 

Mr. Patrick Henry. Mr Chairman, there was a great levee con¬ 
vention held in New Orleans in October, which was attended by over 
1,000 registered delegates from 166 cities and municipalities of this 
country, from 22 States. They passed a resoution which this delega¬ 
tion has been appointed to present to this committee, and I will intro¬ 
duce to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the committee, Mr. John M. 
Parker, the chairman of the committee, who is probably now the 
largest cotton commission merchant in the world, young as he is. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN M. PARKER. 

Mr. Parker. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: In 
October of last year, in New Orleans, we had one of the largest non¬ 
political conventions ever held in the United States; to which were 
appointed over 3,000 delegates, representing every branch of indus¬ 
try in this country. Of this number we had probably a thousand 
who were actually present, representing over 166 of the largest cities 
of the United States and comprising 27 different States. 

The proceedings of that convention have been communicated in 
detail to each and every member of the committee, so that any fur¬ 
ther details from me on that matter would be useless. Speaking 
from a business man’s standpoint, I do not think there is any subject 
in the United States that is of greater importance than the rivers 
and harbors which are directly and closely affiliated with our levees 
down there. 

Few gentlemen who have not been down there and seen our levees 
and the conditions behind them can appreciate the conditions and 
possibilities of that country. To-day you find that England and 
France and Russia are spending millions of dollars in order that they 
may be able to raise cotton in competition with the American product. 
There is probably no place on the face of the globe that naturally 
offers the facilities that Mississippi does. Twenty-five per cent of 
the land available there is now in cultivation, and with protection to 
that area down there we could probably put in 15,000,000 acres addi- 

1 


l<\o*r 



2 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


tional. That to-da}^ is largely typical swamp land, representing the 
fertility and deposits of silt of centuries upon centuries. One of the 
great reasons now that every acre of that land is not put in cultivation 
is that, with the vagaries and changes in the Mississippi River, people 
are afraid to come there and put their money into it and develop it. 
That is one reason why this convention came together down there and 
appealed to the United States. That, Mr. Chairman, was one of the 
strong reasons why the people of that region appealed to the United 
States to come down and give them protection, either by taking abso¬ 
lute control of the country or making such appropriations as will 
enable us to continue the work that we have undertaken, and guaran¬ 
teeing safety. 

We are not unaware that this committee has done a great deal, and 
the highest tribute that can be paid to the efficiency of their aid and 
the ability of the men who have conducted that work is the statement 
that no levee that has ever been erected under the auspices of the 
United States Government has ever failed to serve its purpose and to 
continue to do so. There are strong reasons why that statement is a 
fact. Our old levees—many of them are levees that have been built a 
little at a time and from time to time, whereas the Government levees 
have been erected by the United States engineers with plenty of means 
to see that the levees are thoroughly and solidly built and properly 
constructed and are properly protected after they are built. 

We do not come here exactly in the line of being supppliants y 
because we have put up two dollars for every dollar that has been 
paid out by the United States Government for this purpose, but there 
are thousands of acres in that Delta that are not worth over $2 an 
acre, which, if put into cultivation, as they certainly would be the 
moment that it was known that the United States Government was 
going to protect these levees, would rise in value to $50 an acre. 
Many of those people own their lands, and are not men who are 
actuated in the slightest degree by personal interests. We occupy 
down there a unique position, inasmuch as we sell everything we 
raise. We furnish the largest exports to maintain the balance of 
trade of the world for the United States, and in return we buy nearly 
every dollar’s worth that we use. We are the largest customers for 
the farmers of Ohio and Tennessee and Kentucky for their stock; we 
keep the mills of Pittsburg running to furnish us with cotton ties 
and coal; we are the largest consumers of machinery in the Southern 
States; we buy everything that we use; and, over and beyond that, 
that river that flows by our doors has more importance and means 
more to the farmers of the West than anything else, because it fur¬ 
nishes parity of transportation rates and forces them to give us rea¬ 
sonable rates. 

I do not know whether you have noticed the enormous strides that 
in recent years New Orleans has made commercially. This has been 
largely due to the fact that we had a few years ago no railroads at 
all through that Delta, and now we have five trunk lines—lines whose 
stocks and bonds are owned all over the United States. As a prac¬ 
tical cotton planter, who has been in that business for twenty years, 
I would say that we think that this year the Mississippi Delta alone 
will make 10,000,000 bales of cotton. I think, sir, that with protec¬ 
tion from the United StatpT”Gu veinment—simply the assurance of 
this committee that you gei ilfl^^ y b^fi^^tl5yS$Sthe requests we make 


APR 111930 


DfVfS!OM Of DOCUMENTS 







3 



/ < ?^4 RIVER AND harbor appropriation bill. 

are fair, and von believe that you are better able to take charge of 
those levees than the separate States or than the separate levee 
boards which have under former methods of work undertaken it— 
I believe, if the commission of the United States Government makes 
the announcement to the world, the Delta will rapidly populate and 
be one of the most prosperous parts of the United States. 


STATEMENT OF MR. M. F. SMITH. 

Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I will read the resolu¬ 
tions adopted by the Interstate Mississippi River Improvement and 
Levee Convention: 


Resolutions adopted by the Interstate Mississippi River Improvement and Levee 
Convention held at New Orleans, La., October 27, 1903. 

The committee on resolutions begs leave to submit the following report: 

First. After years of actual observation and experience, and supported by the 
opinions of all engineers, whether from the Engineer Corps of the Army or from 
civil life, who have been directly connected with the work of levee construction, 
we desire to affirm that we have the most absolute confidence in the sufficiency 
of levees, when built according to correct standards, to protect the Mississippi 
Valley from overflow. 

In support of this declaration we beg leave to submit the following facts, which 
have been fully established: An elaborate and careful investigation, made under 
the direction of the Mississippi River Commission, wholly disproves the notion, 
which still prevails to a considerable extent, that the immediate effect of levee 
construction is to cause the bed of the Mississippi River to rise. If this were true 
it would necessarily follow that the levees would need to be continuously 
strengthened and elevated, and thus all hope of protection would have to be 
abandoned. 

In the years 1881, 1882, and 1883 an elaborate survey was made of the river 
bed from Cairo to the Passes, a distance of 1,003 miles. Four cross sections to 
the mile were made, and 75 soundings were made to each line. The result of 
this survey was carefully plotted, recorded, and preserved. 

In the years 1894, 1895, and 1896, after the lapse of a period of thirteen years, 
a still more elaborate survey was made of that part of the river bed between 
the Arkansas River and Donaldsonville, La., a distance of 472 miles. 

While local changes in the river bed are necessarily constantly happening by 
reason of the gradual movement downstream of the bends, and accompanying 
bars and pools, they of themselves signify nothing. Yet a comparison such as 
that which has been drawn from the result of the two extensive surveys men¬ 
tioned would necessarily furnish proof that the bed of the river was rising if 
such were the truth. So far from the comparison indicating such result from 
levee construction, it was discovered that there is a general tendency to the 
establishment of a more uniform channel in depth and width and with greater 
capacity. 

The comparison also brought to light the fact that the crests of the low-water 
bars, as well as those of the high-water bars, have been lowered. 

If we turn to the evidence afforded by the records of the numerous gauges 
established along the river, which have also been carefully recorded and pre¬ 
served, we find that the low waters now are several feet lower than they were 
in the years preceding active levee construction, accompanied by an equal volume 
of water and an equal depth of channel. This unquestionably shows that the 
effect of levee construction has been to bring about a gradual depression of the 
river bed. This effect has been produced within the past few years, for prior to 
that time there was no such restraint of the flood waters as could leave any 
impress whatever, one way or the other, upon the river bed. 

The notion that the bed of the river is rising has been somewhat revived since 
the flood of 1903, because of the fact that at certain points the gauge reading 
showed not only unusually great elevation of the flood height, but irregular ele¬ 
vation. From this it has been deduced by some that at those places where 
the gauge readings were the highest there had been, as the result of levee con¬ 
struction, an unusual deposit of silt, thus raising the bed of the river. A simple 
explanation will destroy; this-theory,-: 



4 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


In 1880, when the levees were by no means continuous and were altogether 
insufficient to affect the flood plane in any degree, the first thoughtful and scien¬ 
tific observation of the river began. This was because of the fact that the 
Mississippi River Commission then entered upon the discharge of its duties. It 
was noted that the rise and fall of the river was very different at different 
points. It was observed that the greater annual oscillations, which were of 
about forty-five feet, were to be found at or near the mouths of the tributaries, 
such as the Ohio, the St. Francis, the Arkansas, and the Red rivers. It was 
also observed that the lesser annual oscillations, which were of about thirty- 
five feet, were to be found at intermediate points along the fronts of the great 
basins drained by these tributaries—as, fcr example, at Fulton, Memphis, 
Greenville, Lake Providence, and St. Joseph. 

A careful platting of the gauge readings at that time exhibited a smooth and 
regular high-water slope, but an exceedingly irregular low-water slope. This 
was caused by considerable depression of the river bed at or near the junction 
with the tributaries of the river, and a considerable elevation of the bed along 
the fronts of the great basins between them. For this reason it was noted that 
the rise in high water was much greater where the bed of the river was 
depressed at or near the points of junction with its tributaries. 

It was observed that the discharge at high water at these points, because of 
these depressions, was something like 1,500,000 cubic feet per second, while along 
the intervening basin fronts the discharge was several hundred thousand feet 
less. This difference in discharge, ranging from a quarter to a half-million feet, 
was because of the escape of water over the river banks along these basin fronts. 
This escape of water undoubtedly caused the elevation of the bed along these 
fronts, which was noted, and we feel justified in affirming that when this 
escape shall have been permanently prevented by the construction of suitable 
levees, these elevated portions of the river bed will be gradually lowered to con¬ 
form to the bed at the points of junction with tributaries, thus making a regular 
low-water slope. When this shall have been accomplished, undoubtedly the low¬ 
ering of the river bed will steadily go on. 

It has also been noted that during the flood of 1903 the heights attained by 
the flood in excess of those hitherto recorded were greatest at the points along 
these basin fronts, as, for instance, at Memphis, where the rise was 3 feet 
greater than any ever known. 

The excess of flood height at the points of depression referred to was nothing 
like so extreme. 

We therefore declare that, in our judgment, there is no warrant whatever for 
the assertion that the effect of levee construction has been or will be to raise 
the bed of the river, but, on the contrary, it is our definite conviction that the 
effect will be to cause a general and considerable lowering of the bed. 

EFFICIENCY OF LEVEES. 

Second. We also desire to express our firm opposition to all schemes for 
reducing flood heights of the lower river by the construction of reservoirs or 
so-called outlets. We refer to and indorse fully all that is said upon this sub¬ 
ject by the very careful and able report submitted in 1898 by the Commerce 
Committee of the United States Senate, which is so complete and elaborate as 
to exhaust the consideration of the question. We will add that all schemes 
which have ever been proposed for the relief of the river in times of flood by 
outlets or reservoirs would either prove wholly inefficient or would cost such 
vast sums and require such constant care and expenditures as to entitle them 
to no consideration. 

Third. While the flood of 1903 was very nearly as great as that of 1897, and 
while the flood plane was greatly in excess of that of 1897, the protection 
afforded in 1903 over that of 1897 is so great as to satisfy the minds of all 
impartial investigators that so far as the test has gone the principle of protec¬ 
tion by levee construction has been amply vindicated. In 1903 there were but 
G crevasses as against 43 in 1897. With each recurring flood since levee con¬ 
struction began in earnest the number of crevasses has grown smaller and 
smaller, and the protection afforded has grown greater and greater. As a result, 
investments of capital in the Mississippi Valley have increased until they are 
almost fabulous. The low-lying back lands, which prior to that date were 
regarded as valueless, are fast being occupied and converted into homes for the 
benefit of our people. Towns and cities have sprung up in every direction. 
Railroads now traverse the valley so that nearly every part of it is now reached 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


5 


by them. All of this affords eveidence of the strongest possible conviction on 
the part of the people that the time is sure to come when they will have abso¬ 
lute protection from the floods of the river. 

Theorists may argue against the efficiency of levees, but they do so in vain. 
The strong common sense of the people responds by rejecting their theories. 
The work must go on. It can not now stop. Too much money has been invested 
in levees to suffer them to be destroyed, and unless they are prosecuted to 
completion they will be destroyed. The enormous investments made because of 
them, and in reliance upon their completion, can not in good faith be abandoned 
now to the devastation of the floods. We presume that no man can be found at 
this stage of the work to suggest that the plan of protection by levees should be 
abandoned, at least until a full and complete test has shown them to be imprac¬ 
ticable. 


MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION. 

Fourth. The following abstract of the report of the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission. just made, and hardly yet published, gives the very latest opinion of 
the Commission upon the levee question, and is so comprehensive and pertinent 
that we give it at length, to wit: 

“The past flood established, more clearly than has any previous one, both 
the importance and the practicability of a complete and sufficient levee system. 
In its present condition, incomplete both as regards extension and dimensions, 
it gave substantial protection to three-quarters of the alluvial valley and its 
interests, which under equal flood conditions without levees would have been 
a lake from 20 to 80 miles wide from Cairo to the Gulf. The improvement 
made during the past six years has reduced the number of crevasses between 
Cairo and New Orleans from 38 to (3. Of the area overflowed this year, five- 
eighths was the direct result of back water from the lower ends of the basins 
and overflow through unbuilt parts of projected lines, and only three-eighths 
from breaks in the levees, notwithstanding their unfinished condition as regards 
both grade and section. 

“ Under these circumstances the importance of the earliest practicable comple¬ 
tion of the work is apparent. If the flood damages of 1903 may be approxi¬ 
mately estimated at $5,000,000, the previous expenditure of that sum in perma¬ 
nent work would have largely if not'entirely prevented them. Every year’s delay 
in completion incurs the risk of similar loss. When the system shall have been 
completed the cost will have been increased by many millions of dollars, and the 
development of the valley delayed by many years of anxiety and disaster, which 
could have been saved by continuous work on a scale commensurate with the 
importance and magnitude of the improvement. The State levee districts 
realize this. Most of them have anticipated their revenues as far as practi¬ 
cable, and several have now under consideration plans for such increase of 
resources applicable to the work as wili shorten the time of completion. The 
Commission is so impressed with this view of the subject that it considers it for 
the best interest of the work to now make contracts for levee construction to the 
extent of $2,000,000, as provided for in the river and harbor act of June 30, 1905, 
and June 30, 1906. Furthermore, it suggests that if Congress should think 
proper to make additional provisions for levee construction during the fiscal 
years ending June 30, 1905, and June 30, 1906, the sum of $2,000,000 in addition 
to the amounts already provided can be judiciously and advantageously 
expended during each year.” 

CONSERVATION OF COMMERCE. 

Fifth. In addition to the protection of the lands of the Mississippi Valley 
from the floods, it is a matter of supreme importance that the mind of the nation 
should he kept constantly advised of the commercial importance of the Missis¬ 
sippi River as a highway of commerce. The marvelous growth of railroad build¬ 
ing within the last quarter of a century has so diverted the attention of the 
public from the Mississippi River as a means of transportation that it has been 
to some extent lost sight of. It has remained, however, a constant safeguard 
against undue rates of transportation and promises in the near future to become 
once more as active a factor in interstate commerce as it ever has been in the 
past. This is owing, first, to the almost unparalleled increase in industrial 
activity throughout the valley, and, second, to the demonstration which has 
been made in recent years that by means of hydraulic dredges a sufficient chan- 


6 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


nel for low-water navigation can he secured and maintained. We earnestly 
express the hope that the work of the Mississippi River Commission in this 
direction he pressed as rapidly as can he properly done, with a view to opening 
up the great river once more, so that the people may fully enjoy the extraordi¬ 
nary facilities which it is capable of supplying for the cheap and steady exchange 
of their commodities. Levee construction is undoubtedly essential, even if all 
thought of reclaiming the fertile lands of the valley should he abandoned, for 
without levees all river commerce during periods of overflow would necessarily 
cease. 


A GRIEVOUS BURDEN. 

Sixth. The work of levee construction has been carried on by the cooperation 
of the United States Government through the agency* of the Mississippi River 
Commission with the levee organizations of the several riparian States. Of the 
amount expended in this work, the Government has contributed, in round figures, 
about one-third. The people have subjected themselves to such heavy taxation 
in furnishing their contributions until they have already overburdened their 
resources in this regard. It is the opinion of the residents of the great valley 
that the difficulties and magnitude of the work and the vast benefits to result 
from it are such that in common justice the burden should be placed upon the 
strong shoulders of the Federal Government, and that the work should be urged 
to speedy completion. By suitable annual appropriations this can be accom¬ 
plished, thus securing not only safety, but great economy. Therefore: 

DUTY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

Resolved , That in the judgment of this convention the protection of the Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley from floods is of such national importance as not only to justify 
but to make it the duty of the General Government to undertake it and press it 
to the speediest possible completion. If, for any reason, the exercise of sole 
jurisdiction at this time by the General Government should not be deemed advis¬ 
able then this convention urges most earnestly that Congress make, at its 
approaching session, such appropriations as are recommended by the Mississippi 
River Commission in its recent report. 

THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. 

Resolved further, That the system of river improvements in the Valley of the 
Mississippi from its headwaters to the Gulf and in the Valley of the Ohio and 
other tributaries, now provided for and those which may hereafter be provided 
for by Congress, under the supervision of the United States engineers, meets our 
hearty commendation and should be prosecuted to completion without unneces¬ 
sary delay. 

Resolved, That the attention of Congress is invited to the serious disasters 
which have befallen those residing at or near St. Louis, Kansas City, and other 
localities by reason of the recent great floods, and the Secretary of War is 
respectfully requested to cause an inquiry to be made with a view to the prep¬ 
aration of suitable plans for the prevention of a recurrence of such injuries. 

Be it resolved. That the convention of delegates representing the States of the 
great Mississippi Valley from Duluth to the Gulf of Mexico gives its unquali¬ 
fied approval to the movement for the construction of a waterway connecting 
the Great Lakes at the north with the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mex¬ 
ico at the south. 

We recognize the expenditure of $35,000,000 by the sanitary district of Chicago 
as a practical demonstration in the furtherance of this project. We express the 
hope that the Senators and Representatives in Congress from the various States 
represented in this convention will give their encouragement and assistance to 
Congressional legislation in favor of the completion of the deep waterway, to 
which the Mississippi Valley States have already given their approval, and to 
which the State of Illinois and the sanitary district of Chicago are committed as 
a matter of policy and by great financial expenditures already made. 

Resolved. That it is the sense of this convention that the work of the Inter¬ 
state Mississippi River Improvement and Levee Association, under the wise and 
able guidance of its president, Charles Scott, has been of great and lasting value, 
and its continuance is a matter of vital importance, and that this organization, as 
it exists, with Charles Scott as its president and J. W. Bryant and W. A. Ever- 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


7 


man . a ® * ts secretaries, be continued, and that Charles Scott be authorized to 
appoint three members from each State as members of the executive committee 
•of said association. 

Mr. Henry. You will next be addressed, Mr. Chairman and gen¬ 
tlemen, by Mr. Charles S. Fairchild, of New York. 

STATEMENT OF ME. CHARLES S. FAIRCHILD, OF NEW YORK. 

Mr. Fairchild. Mr. Chairman, in the last few years I have had 
•occasion to go to the South and to New Orleans on business and 
pleasure a number of times. I have been in New Orleans at the 
time of this great convention in October, which is spoken of, and 
from all that I learned there, all that I heard, and from mv own re¬ 
flections, I have been profoundly impressed with the importance of 
this subject, and led to the belief that it was the supreme interest of 
the people of our whole country to take care that the best was done 
along the Mississippi River for the protection of its adjoining lands 
and for the improvement of its waterway that could be done under the 
teachings of science and experience. 

This crop, this great cotton crop which they raise in that country, 
and the extension of which is possible beyond "anything that we know 
now, is of vast importance to every part of this country. A failure of 
the cotton crop, or a permanent diminution of the amount produced, 
would make it necessary for the people of this country to readjust its 
whole financial relations with the world. It is, as the chairman of 
this committee which appears before you, Mr. Parker, has said, the 
thing that more than anything else maintains our balance of trade. 
It is the one crop in which the United States has practically the mon¬ 
opoly of the world. It is the one thing by extending which we can 
command the business of the world. We have rivals in everything 
else that we produce. In cotton our rivals are but few, and those 
poor and feeble. Therefore it behooves us to nurse and care for this 
unique thing which gives the United States so commanding a posi¬ 
tion in the world. 

Then see all of our people who are more immediately interested in 
it. Think of the effect in every mill town in New England of the 
amount of the cotton crop; think of the effect, the possible effect, upon 
them now of a partial failure of cotton crops during the last few 
years; think of the thousands and thousands of people all over our 
northern country who are so immediately affected in their daily lives 
by this; and then, logically, with all else that we have done and are- 
doing we should above all things promote the welfare of this Missis¬ 
sippi Valley. Think of what we have done in the past; think of the 
great sums of money for which the United States obligated itself 
to build railways across the continent; think of the vast empires of 
land which w r e gave away to build those railways; think of all that 
we are doing and proposing to do for irrigation in the great West, 
wery properly and wisely, because it has been demonstrated that that 
must go beyond State lines. Think of all that we are doing to improve 
our harbors on our eastern coast. Why ? Why, for the benefit of 
the wheat fields of the great West, the dairies of our East and Middle 
West, in order that they may have a ready and easy access to the 
ocean. 


8 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL.. 


Think of the great enterprise upon which we are entering in build¬ 
ing a canal; to build a canal to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific. 
Think of what we are doing in the far East, in China, in extending 
our treat} 7 relations, in taking up a position where we will have a 
greater influence and a greater access than ever before. Why? For 
what? To do what with them? To sell things to those people. 
What things? Why, the main thing we are to sell them is cotton— 
cotton goods. That is why we are willing to almost strain our rela¬ 
tions with some of the nations of the Avorld, that we may keep open 
markets. What we wish to sell in those markets is cotton goods. 
Now, if we do not take care of the production of the raw material of 
the cotton goods, all that we are doing in that respect is almost waste 
time, because we will cease to be a great cotton manufacturing country. 

Now, all of these considerations lead me to the conclusion that 
logically, consistently with all that we are doing in these directions of 
which I have spoken, we should go on to do that which science and 
experience tells us will be most beneficent and most speedy for the 
extension of the production of this great staple. I am sure that there 
is no one in the North who, when he fairly considers the subject, when 
he considers the relations which it bears to all of our interests, when 
he considers the vast market which it affords for all of our Northern 
products in the South, giving a great interstate trade, when he con¬ 
siders the importance of it to our own interests, in connection not 
only with our own consumption, but with that of the world, will 
begrudge any expenditure this committee may consider it necessary 
to make to speedily and efficiently do that work that should be done 
along that Mississippi River. Further than that, by cheapening the 
means of transportation, by still further increasing this enormous 
commerce which now goes out from that Mississippi River, you will 
be conferring a benefit upon the remotest parts of our Middle West. 

Therefore, gentlemen, it is with great pleasure and satisfaction that 
I have come here at the invitation of these gentlemen to say my few 
words and to urge you to do all that you possibly can to speedily 
complete this work, because every year that it is delayed is an enor¬ 
mous loss to the West. 

Mr. Parker. I will introduce to you next, Mr. Chairman, Mr. A. M. 
Caldwell, of Memphis. 

STATEMENT OF MR. A. N. CALDWELL. 

Mr. Caldwell. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I want to say that 
I am not a public speaker and I want to save just as much of your 
time as possible because I know that it is valuable, and in order to 
save hesitation and repetition I have made a written outline of the 
few things which I have to say to you, and I assure you that they 
are not very many. 

In supporting the resolutions of the great convention which was 
recently held in New Orleans, I wish to give you the viewpoint of a 
business man, of one Avho, in 1882, left Indiana and cast his lot with 
the people of the great Mississippi Delta. While I live in the citv of 
Memphis my separate business interests are in the delta itself. 

This territory, which we are asking you now and which you know 
we have been asking you for many years to assist in protecting, has, 
I believe, about 19,000,000 acres of land; and I think there is less 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 9 

than one-third of that area that is in actual cultivation, and that 
third I know is very sparsely settled, and very poorly improved, 
because of frequent overflows. Now, in these times, when all the 
great nations of the world are striving after enlarged territorial pos¬ 
sessions a*nd hesitating at the expenditure of no amount of money in 
their purchase nor human lives in their conquest, is not this territory 
of itself, irrespective of the navigation of the Mississippi River, 
worthy of the attention of Congress, not only because of the increased 
population which will come and the increased commerce which Mr, 
Fairchild has so ably spoken to you about, and the increased wealthy 
but in order to maintain the supremacy of this country in the produc¬ 
tion of cotton ? 

Just now both Germany and England are giving a good deal of 
attention to the development of cotton fields in their colonies and in 
their various spheres of influence, and they are expending vast sums of 
money in this work. It is within the year that an agent of the 
German Government called upon me in the city of Memphis and told 
me that he had been representing for quite a long time the German 
Government in German East Africa in developing that country, and 
he wanted to pump me about cotton growing in the United States, 
and he wanted to get as much information as he could. He wanted 
to buy cotton seed and he wanted me to recommend to him white men 
who understood cotton culture and were open to employment by the 
German Government and who were willing to go way out there and 
open up that new country for-cotton growing. Well, I told him all 
I knew, and I have no doubt that those fields as well as others will be 
greatly increased; although I believe with Mr. Fairchild that if the 
proper thing is done in this country we need never fear competition 
in cotton culture. 

But the most important matter for the consideration of our people 
is the present condition of the cotton trade. On the basis of prices 
which have been obtained for that part of the present cotton crop 
which has been up to the present time marketed, and taking the pres¬ 
ent value of cotton as a basis for estimating that which is to be mar¬ 
keted from now until the end of the year, and taking the Government’s 
estimate of the size of the crop, say 12,000,000 bales, as another basis, 
this present crop of cotton and seed will produce $750,000,000. Now, 
not all of that will have been received by the Southern planters, but 
nearly all of it will have been received by citizens of the United 
States. A little bit of it has gotten away to our friends .of England, 
who bought cotton early. But not a great deal. 

Now, it seems to me that a serious question, and one that I have not 
heard brought up before this committee, or in this convention, is the 
fact that all of the people of the United States who consume cotton— 
cotton goods—and that is practically nearly all of them, and espe¬ 
cially the wage-earning class, the poorer classes of our country, have 
got to pay and have paid the enhanced prices of cotton by virtue of 
this short crop; and that may seem to you, without study, to be a 
small thing, but if you knew the advance in the price of cotton goods, 
based on the present value of the raw material, you could see that it 
is a very serious thing, and that many people at present prices will 
not be able to get as many cotton goods as they would under what I 
call normal conditions—that is, when cotton is about 8 or 9 cents a 
pound. 


10 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Now, gentlemen, would it not be infinitely better for us to get that 
$750,000,000 out of a crop of 15,000,000 bales at 8 cents per pound 
and that is about what 15,000,000 bales produces—rather than to get 
that large sum of money out of 10,000,000 bales of cotton at that very 
large price ? 

Is that not a matter absolutely of interest to every single person in 
the United States, irrespective of where he lives or what he does? 
But you must not stop at the contemplation of a crop of 15,000,000 
bales, because the steady increase in the annual consumption of cotton 
makes it quite sure that it will be only a few years before 15,000,000 
bales will be as short a crop in that day as 10,000,000 bales is to-day. 

I think it is generally conceded that the consumption of cotton at 
moderate prices has now overtaken production, and that the largest 
cotton crop we ever raised, that of a few years ago, about 11,250,000 
bales, would, if produced this next season, sell for at least 12 cents a 
pound; and if the conditions of the world remain normal, many 
people believe that an 11,250,000-bale crop would sell for more than 
12 cents. So that in the last very few years—I think it is only three 
or four—what was the largest crop of cotton that was ever made, and 
which was talked about as a tremendous crop, has in that very short 
time down to the present time that I am talking to you, almost become 
a short crop. So that if we are to think about the material welfare of 
the citizens of this whole country, and what they are to pay for an 
article of clothing that probably they use more than_any other article 
of clothing, we must prepare in this country, unless we voluntarily 
give it to other nations in the world, larger cotton crops. 

Perhaps you may think that 18-cent cotton is the result of specu¬ 
lation. That is what I believe July cotton sold for yesterday, and by 
July cotton I do not mean speculative cotton, I mean cotton to be 
actually delivered in July from plantations or from interior points, 
wherever it may be now, to the particular market where that price 
was made. You may think that that high price of cotton is the 
result of speculation, but, gentlemen, von would be wrong. That is 
not the case. It is directly the result of too little cotton. As a 
business man who has had a great many years’ experience with cot¬ 
ton and really ample opportunity to judge and observe, I should say 
it is the steady annual increase of consumption in the larger annual 
ratio, than production. I can not help but be impressed with the 
gravity of the situation, and I do not believe that I am sounding a 
false alarm when I say I think it is well worthy of the attention of 
Congress and of this committee which has it so largely in its power 
to prevent the people of this country from carrying the present bur¬ 
den, and possibly relieve them of a heavier burden in the future. 

To me the question does not seem to be one of soliciting you gentle¬ 
men for one million dollars or two million dollars or three million 
dollars this year or next year or the year after, nor does it occur to me 
at all as a question in which you should put the relative position of 
the great Mississippi River with the other rivers and harbors of the 
country. I know that there are other rivers and harbors just as much 
entitled to the support and help of the Government as the Mississippi 
River, but to my mind this is a great deal bigger problem than a 
river problem. 

If Germany and England are willing to spend large sums of money 
in the development of cotton fields in their colonies, is it not worthy 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


11 


of your attention ? And is there a surer way of bringing the price of 
cotton down to what it was a few years ago, down to a comparatively 
small price, than by the increase of the acreage planted in cotton"? 
Some years the seasons may be favorable, or the negroes may work a 
little better that year, and we may arrange the acreage planted so as 
to make a somewhat larger crop than the year before. But larger 
cotton crops, as a rule, very much larger cotton crops, gentlemen, are 
only going to be obtained by increasing the area planted in cotton. I 
have no doubt that there are many places in the United States and in 
the Southern States, I should say, where there are still some lands 
available for cotton, but I know of no State that has a territory to 
compare with this great territory in the Delta of the Mississippi, none 
in which the area is anywhere near as large, and none where the land 
is anywhere near as fertile. 

If this is worth doing, gentlemen, do you not think that it is worth 
doing just as soon as possible? As I am not here to urge your appro¬ 
priation of one or two million dollars for the next year, or any other 
sum, I am not here either to ask you to appropriate the whole 
$15,000,000 that are necessary right now; but is it not worthy of 
carrying in your minds and making up your minds that it shall be 
done just as soon as possible, to be done in the most economical way, 
to be mapped out in advance as a continuous work, so that there shall 
be no waste of money by its not being able to go on after the thing is 
once begun? 

There might be some reason for putting this off to the future, for 
putting off what you yourselves think were well done now, if we were 
poverty stricken; but, gentlemen, you know that that is not the case, 
for our present prosperity is the talk of all the peoples of the world, 
and it is actually the political slogan of more than one-half of the 
people of the United States. 

Now, there is a little enterprise in which our Government was 
engaged a short time ago that has always struck me on my humorous 
side when it w as brought up in connection with the expenditure of 
Government funds for such great public works as this, and that was 
the expenditure of considerably over $300,000,000, I believe, and 
nearly 3,000 lives of our fellow-citizens, in wresting Cuba from Spain 
and presenting it as a free gift to people who are alien to us in blood 
and custom, and who love us just about the same as the average man 
loves a man to whom he is under financial obligations. There may 
have been some benefit to us, gentlemen, in having the Cubans rule 
Cuba rather than the Spaniards, but for my part it has not been at all 
clear. The sentimental part of that transaction was understood, and 
the taking from Spain was almost unanimously approved, but I am 
not quite sure that the present to these ungrateful Cubans would be 
as heartily approved just now. Cuba, with all is islands, embracss a 
territory of about 29,000,000 as against the 19,000,000 acres in the delta 
of the Mississippi, and a far larger proportion of Cuba’s total acreage 
is and alwavs will be totally unproductive. 

Now, if the Government could afford to be so lavishly generous in 
making a present to these kind friends of ours in Cuba of so large 
an amount of money, gentlemen, is it asking very much, or is it a very 
strange thing, that v r e should ask the expenditure of a paltry 
$15,000,000 to develop a Cuba lying in your very midst? Just think 
of this magnificent province. It is as large as Vermont, New Hamp- 


12 RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 

shire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The undeveloped part of 
it is as large as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. That 
undeveloped part is of just about the size of New Jersey, Delaware, 
and Maryland. Now, suppose that those three last-named States were 
entirely undeveloped on account of overflows from the ocean, and that 
the $15,000,000 would open them up to settlement, open up their lands 
to the various productive crops that those States can raise; gentle¬ 
men, would there be any hesitation on the part of the United States 
Government about expending that amount to save and develop a 
province like New Jerse}^, Delaware, and Maryland? And yet we 
come to you and point out that here is a province a little farther 
toward the West, at present made unfit for population and cultiva¬ 
tion, and for the production which I have suggested is to the benefit 
of the whole country, by overflows, not from the ocean whose waters 
can not be increased or diminished; an area which can not be increased 
or diminished as cultivated area is increased all over the country out¬ 
side of this area I am speaking of, but a country which is affected by 
overflows of waters that pour down upon it from a little over two- 
fifths of all the other parts of the United States. 

Now, I have heard it said in connection with these matters that the 
Mississippi River Commission, as it came down my way on more than 
one occasion, has said that God helps those who help themselves. If 
that is the case, gentlemen, certainly the nation, which is our earthly 
god, ought to stretch out a helping hand to this country down there, 
for they have been doing year after year everything in their power 
imposing upon themselves a burden, to keep from drowning in waters 
that come from the north, the east, and the west. You have been told 
about the difference between the amount expended by the Government 
in levees and by this country down there which is to be protected. I 
believe from the first levees constructed the Government has expended 
$17,000,000, and the people of that country have expended something 
over $40,000,000. Of course there was a time during this late un¬ 
pleasantness when a good many of these levees were broken and 
destroyed; but even after the work was taken up again, after the civil 
war, the people down there spent a great deal more than the Govern¬ 
ment in that work. And it has been demonstrated to be effective. 

I do not believe there is anyone on this committee, in view of all the 
reports of Government engineers and the Mississippi River Commis¬ 
sion, who will doubt the efficacy of the levees, if they were completed, 
or the efficacy of the levee system even as far as it has gone; and if 
that is true, should not the Government down there, after the expendi¬ 
ture of $15,000,000—even if all these others things do not make any 
impression upon you—put in the other $15,000,000 to complete this 
work ? If it is true that half begun is well done, I say that half done, 
if you are to stop there, certainly was not well begun. 

Now, I am the owner of several plantations in that delta, and I have 
owned a good many. Before coming up here I had the tax receipts 
of the places that I now own, and some others that I owned only a few 
years ago, brought to me, and, gentlemen, the taxation down there 
varies from 2 per cent to 4 per cent on the cost of these plantations to 
me, the variation being according to the levee district in which the 
plantation happens to be situated. Now, that is a taxation solely for 
levee purposes, not for anything else. It is solely for the purpose of 
maintaining the levees. Does not that suggest a pretty heavy burden 


RLVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


13 


of taxation? Does it not suggest that the people down there are 
doing all in their power to bring about a result which should be for 
the good of the whole country ? 

But you can not impose a heavier burden than that upon them. 
The property will not stand it. But if the levee system were com¬ 
pleted, if it were entirely done, I have not any doubt, from the 
increased area in cultivation, and the increased value of the property, 
and the increased production, that the people of that country would 
be able to take care of and protect this levee system without any fur¬ 
ther assistance from the Government. 

But the last thing I wish to speak to you about, and to my mind it 
is a very strong reason why the Government should do this work, and 
do it as quickly as possible, is this: We have with us in the delta a 
large number of the wards of the nation—the negroes. It is the 
natural home of the negro. There is the maximum yield of cotton 
for the minimum amount of work, and that always suits the negro. 
[Laughter.] 

Among Southern negro farmers the drift has for many years been 
toward the delta, and still is, but interrupted by the frequent over¬ 
flows. With the complete protection of this country, the negro will 
find his greatest opportunity, and he will not do harm to other States, 
because in those States the land will be taken up by the whites. The 
white man will not become a tiller of the soil in the South alongside 
-of the negro, and as the negro gets out of the country the white set¬ 
tlers come in, and like the cultivators of the wheat and corn lands of 
the North they will become actual tillers of the soil. Now, I believe 
that in this very delta lies the solution of the so-called “ negro ques¬ 
tion.” We have him with us always, and he is on the minds of many 
-of us. I have done a great deal of thinking about it, and I have tried 
an experiment. 

I believed that the negro would become an industrious citizen and 
a. fairly good.citizen if he owned his farm; that not education but 
land ownership was the thing to elevate the negro, if you choose to 
call it that, but at any rate to better his condition and make him—what 
is to the interest of the whole country—a good citizen. I am not in 
the real-estate business, gentlemen, but I subdivided some of my own 
lands, and was instrumental in having some other land owned by some 
of my own friends subdivided into small farms, 40, 60, 80, and 160 
acres, and these farms I sold to negroes without any cash payment, on 
long time and easy payments and at a rate of interest low in that sec¬ 
tion—6 per cent. 

In nearly every instance I built a cabin, a little frame house, tor 
the negro to live in. In many instances I bought and furnished him 
a mule with which to make the crop, and in some instances I even 
went the length, after furnishing him the house and the mule, of fur¬ 
nishing him the money with which to live for the first year. In all 
I disposed of a little over 23,000 acres in this way, and less than one- 
fourth of it has come back on my hands, and while in the instance of 
the other three-fourths the money has not all been paid, sufficient of it 
has been paid to guarantee that of those transactions the iemaining 
three-fourths will turn out well. And in every instance the negro 
who has bought land has become a good citizen and an industrious 
citizen, and ambitious to further better his condition. And this has 
been my observation also of other negro land owners. I know that 


14 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


there are some exceptions; I do’not mean to say that there are not; 
but I believe that the rule will hold generally good, and I have not the 
slightest hesitancy in telling you gentlemen that the negro farmer is a 
better citizen and a more successful man than the negro preacher, the 
negro doctor, the negro artisan, and the negro lawyer. I am not 
alone in this belief, for Judge Robert S. Taylor, has said : 

In considerable and ever-increasing numbers they are buying land and becom¬ 
ing independent cultivators. Those who do so are steadily advancing in thrift, 
intelligence, and the qualities of good citizenship. Nowhere else in the South 
are as favorable opportunities offered to the black man as in the reclaimed 
Mississippi lowlands, and nowhere else is he doing as much for his own uplifting. 

That is the observation of a man who does not live there, but who- 
comes there a great deal. 

I am sincere in bringing this negro question before you. It has not 
been done to make an additional argument, but it is done because I am 
fully convinced that there is a great deal in it, and that the opening 
up of that 13,000,000 or 14,000,000 acres of land in the Delta will do- 
more than anything else to quiet a question that is not as loud in the 
South as it is in the North, but a question that is a serious one, the- 
providing in some way for this great mass of black population that 
has got to do something . 

Now, a great many people in the United States feel that the nation 
owes the negro something, and to them I would say, here is a practical 
way of paying that debt without giving him what the negro thought 
lie ought to have at the end of the war—40 acres and a mule—and 
what he certainly is not going to get from Uncle Sam, and that is 
Government rations. 

STATEMENT OF MR. LEROY PERCY. 

Mr. Percy. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: My 
conception of the duty of this committee in coming here before you 
was to tell the Committee on Rivers and Harbors here the character 
of conventions that passed these resolutions, the diverse interests rep¬ 
resented by them, and to vouch in person for the earnestness of pur¬ 
pose and the dire need which prompted the demands or requests upon 
the National Government. 

I had not thought and do not think it advisable to attempt before 
this board of experts, as you may say, on this subject, to go into any 
academic or scientific discussion in regard to the Mississippi Riyer, 
how the work shall be done, whether it can be done or not. At the 
same time, there are a few suggestions which appear to me to be perti¬ 
nent, and if the committee will pardon me for the unprepared man¬ 
ner in which they are submitted, I would like to submit to the com¬ 
mittee that there are three questions upon the affirmative answers to 
which depends whether this convention and its needs have any stand¬ 
ing before this committee or any right to expect aid from the National 
Government. These questions are: Is this work of reclaiming the 
Delta from the overflow waters of the Mississippi River worth doing? 
Second, can this work be done? And third, by whom must this work 
be done if at all? Unless those questions can be answered in the 
affirmative, then, indeed, is our errand here a futile one. If answered 
in the affirmative, then the necesasrv aid must necessarily and will 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


15 


follow. The sole thing left for consideration is the time and the 
manner in which the work shall be done. 

First, is the work of reclaiming this Delta one worth doing? 
Thirty thousand square miles of territory—alluvial land—is to be 
protected by the complete reveting of the Mississippi River. Twenty 
million acres of territory, of which there is possibly 6,000,000 acres 
in cultivation now. There are probably 4,000,000 "acres that could 
not be put in cultivation, owing to the necessary overflow out and 
back water, no matter what system of levees you have; but there is at 
least 10,000,000 acres of it that is susceptible of the highest degree 
of cultivation. Upon this 10,000,000 acres of land, on the most con¬ 
servative estimates, in addition to the diverse crops—sugar cane and 
corn and other agricultural products that can be grown—2,000,000 
bales of cotton can and almost certainly will be grown. 

Is the growing of it a matter of national importance? The answer 
to that question has already been made in the eloquent and broad¬ 
minded and patriotic speech of Mr. Fairchild. He has told what 
that means to this nation; he has told how by our cotton crop we have 
been elevated almost, you may say, to the most commanding position 
among the nations, and he has told you how we have pried open the 
strong boxes of every nation on the globe. The cotton crop consti¬ 
tutes 28 per cent of the exports of the United States, 41 per cent of 
the value of all agricultural exports. To attempt to improve upon 
what Mr. Fairchild has said would be indeed to attempt to paint the 
lily; but the answer is not only found in plain English, such as he 
has spoken, but it is found in diverse tongues from all quarters of the 
globe. 

The five greatest consumers of the cotton exported by the United 
States are England, Germany, France, Russia, and Belgium. They 
are to-day exhausting every effort, regardless of cost of the enterprise, 
going into the waste places of the earth, going among the barbarous 
uncivilized tribes of the world, in the effort to escape this tribute 
which we have inexorably demanded at their hands, and I hazard this 
statement, Mr. Chairman, that no civilized nation to-day is so 
depleted in treasure as to hesitate one moment to make an investment 
of the kind required here, $20,000,000 at the outside, on an almost 
indefinitely small chance of realizing such a return as is promised 
here. Shall the United States, the richest and most progressive of 
all nations, flinch from such an investment when the return is not a 
venture but a certainty? 

Mr. Caldwell has eloquently brought before you the fact that the 
cost of these cotton goods is one that affects every citizen of the United 
States. If this amount of cotton can be grown by means of this aid 
extended by the National Government or by reason of this work being 
done, then the question has been answered that the work is worthy of 
doing; that this inconje, which turns the balance of trade in our 
favor, which amounts to $500,000,000 a year, and will increase from 
now on, is something worth struggling for; the investment is worth 
making. 

Can it be done? Can the 1,140 miles of levee necessary to protect 
the Mississippi delta be maintained? Is the project a possible one? 
About that in the past there has raised much discussion; about that 
in the future there can be no dispute and no question. The question 


16 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


has been answered with mathematical certainty that it can be done, 
and in dollars and cents you are told for what price it can be done. 
The Mississippi River Commission appointed in 1879 by the Govern¬ 
ment for the purpose of taking control of this river answers the ques¬ 
tion not by any a priori reasoning. Composed of some of the most 
eminent engineers in the United States, selected on account of their 
competency and attainments, they have not trusted simply to the voice 
of science, but after spending tw T enty years and more investigating 
the question they say that the result of the high water of .1906, with 
the disaster that it brought, brought also the assurance that the end 
was in sight; that the problem had been solved; that it could be defi¬ 
nitely stated what it would cost to complete the work now under way. 

That overflow was the greatest that we have had on record. In the 
1,140 miles of levee the river made six breaks, counting breaks above 
New Orleans such as overflowed any area of country at all. In the 
entire line of levees there were six crevasses. Altogether there were 
2.4 miles of levee swept away by the flood, but more than nine-tenths 
of the levee district remained protected, notwithstanding the size of 
the flood, and the crevasses that did occur, did not occur in the incipi¬ 
ent stages of the high water, so that the argument oft made and oft 
the flood, and the crevasses that did occur did not occur in the incipi- 
it was in before the crevasses occurred, when the water was within 
twenty-four hours of reaching the point where the break occurred, 
failed in this instance, when, if there had been no break, there would 
have been no appreciable increase in the height of the water, demon¬ 
strating that the levees as made were almost sufficient to carry off 
this water, and showing exactly what kind of levee was needed to 
guard against the recurring waters of the future. 

When you look back to 1882, when the entire district of Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Missouri would have been sub¬ 
merged by this water, the question is answered as to whether these 
levees are a success, when you find that with such a flood only one- 
tenth of the ground protected was overflowed; and the Commission 
says that by the expenditure of $18,000,000 you can complete and 
protect this system so that there is an assurance of safety behind these 
earthen walls. 

The work, then, can be done. The next question is, Who must do 
it? That work must be done by the National Government. It can 
be done in no other way; and it will be done by the National Govern¬ 
ment, and for these reasons. In the first place, we are leveeing a 
national stream. It has been described as the nation’s great sewer, 
draining 41 per cent, exclusive of Louisiana, of the entire area of the 
United States, draining of States and parts of States 32 in number. 
It is the water that the nation has gathered up and hurls down upon 
the denizens of the lower valley. Even in common law, and more so 
in courts of equity, the rule is well recognized the world over that no 
man shall use his own to the hurt of another. 

It is a maxim, Mr. Chairman, that will not be disregarded by a 
great nation in dealing with its own citizens. From the cleared for¬ 
ests of the West and the Northwest in all these States comes all this 
mighty avalanche of water, and upon these people, a mere fringe 
of humanity that stretches along between the river banks and the 
hills, has devolved the duty of battling with these waters. It is the 
nation’s duty, and therefore the nation will respond to it; and that it 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 17 

has not done so sooner has been because that sense of duty has not 
been awakened in it. It is a national work, Mr. Chairman, because 
this same commission reports to the Government that appointed it 
that without a perfected system of levees the navigation of that 
stream can never be brought to any condition of perfection. This 
is a channel that the Government owns, and the tribunal in charge 
of it tells you that these crevasses and breaks and overflows create 
shoals up and down the river which interfere with navigation and 
must necessarily do so. 

The question as to the raising of the bed of the river has been 
answered by the report of the Commission. The experiments made 
by them* conducted through a number of years, have removed that 
apprehension from the minds of all people who have followed their 
investigations; so that I say, Mr. Chairman, in the interests of corn- 
doing that the Government will do it, because the Government alone 
can do it. It is of a magnitude beyond the reach of any local organi¬ 
zation or board. 

That, Mr. Chairman, is perfectly demonstrable, and in this connec¬ 
tion I submit to this committee that, as Mr. Caldwell has said, these 
people have helped themselves. Through the long years, for years 
without, and since 1882 with, Government aid, these people have 
struggled with this problem as best they could, by taxation imposed 
in a hundred ways so as to make it tolerable, they have sought to 
protect themselves. They have spent since 1882 more than $20,000,- 
000 where the Government has spent $17,000,000. They have spent 
since and prior to the time of the Government commencing to aid 
them, $40,000,000. Is there any other class of citizens which comes 
before this committee appealing for Government aid, whether they 
come from the great cities, with their countless millions of wealth, 
or wherever they may come from, that can make the showing that 
these little bands of straggling agriculturalists, hampered by State 
lines, State laws, and State constitutions, can make? 

We have borne the burden through the darkest hours of adversity, 
and it is not to escape that burden that we now come before the 
committee, but we come here for the purpose of showing that the 
work is beyond our feeble efforts—beyond all we can do; and if 
the committee will excuse me for a moment for dwelling upon local 
matters, I can best illustrate that by giving you the outlook in the 
district where I live, not as singular at all, but as illustrative of the 
difficulty of doing anything by local organization. That district 
is known as the Yazoo delta from the Tennessee hills to Vicksburg, 
embracing 325 miles of levee, 200 miles of which are within the dis¬ 
trict where I reside, the lower Mississippi district. We had, up to 
1882, spent $10,000,000. 

The flood of 1882 devastated the entire country. I remember well 
the convention which assembled for the purpose of deciding the ques¬ 
tion of whether any more money should be expended on levees, not 
that the levee question was a failure, but that it was recognized that 
the work was beyond our means to cope with. At that time we had 
two banks in that district where to-day we have thirty; we had two 
oil mills where to-day we have twenty-eight; we had not and never 
could have had, without levees, a single mile of railroad, where to-day 
we have one thousand. 

R AND H APP— 05-2 


18 


river and harbor appropriation bill. 


And it was decided to go on, and we went on under a tax imposed, 
to give yon some idea of how this money was raised, of 5 cents per 
acre on all land, 5 mills ad valorem on all property, real and personal, 
$1 per bale on all cotton raised within the district; and through these 
taxes we collected in those days about $250,000 a year, and with that 
increasing as the development made the amount of tax collected 
greater, and since 1882 assisted by the Government, we have advanced 
to the condition of being probably the most prosperous part of the 
Yazoo delta. The entire country is threaded with railroads; about 
50 per cent of the land in that portion of the delta is cleared up, and 
to-day, with that prosperity, and with the increased returns coming 
from taxation, we are perfectly aghast and helpless at the outlay 
that confronts us. 

The last engineer’s report, made by the engineer of our local board, 
not for the purpose of parading our ills before the world, but because 
it contains information addressed to the board for the information of 
the District, showed that by the caving of those banks we would have 
to spend in the next few years $1,200,000 in building new levees, and 
$2,000,000 in raising our levees above the last water, and the lowest, 
most scant margin consistent with any degree of safety would take 
$3,700,000; and all that we had with which to do this work was this 
revenue from taxation of $350,000 a year, a large part of which is 
devoted to acquiring rights of way and keeping up the levees already 
constructed. 

But we have not shrunk with the protection of the Government— 
with the aid that the Government has given us. We have not held 
back with the idea that our own efforts might be charged against us 
by the Government when it came to the consideration of the question 
of assisting us. In the legislature of Mississippi there is pending a 
measure by which we propose to tax ourselves for $1,000,000 more in 
bonds in that single district, and yet with all that, Mr. Chairman, 
unless the Government should aid the district, we are as helpless 
to-day as when we built the first yard of levee, because $3,200,000 in 
two years is a sum beyond any possibility of raising by any system of 
taxation that can be devised by man; and so it is throughout these 
other districts. The labor is one bevond the power of the local boards. 
It is one easily within the reach or the Government. 

When we say we expended, Mr. Chairman, $12,000,000 in two dis¬ 
tricts, the amount of the expenditure must not be taken as a criterion 
of what it is necessary for the Government to expend in order to give 
us protection. That $12,000,000 is money that has been expended 
year by year in driblets, as it could be raised from the people by taxa¬ 
tion, and a large part of the work done with that money has been 
swept away by floods within the year, and that work has had to be 
built over and over again where we had built before. That does not 
represent the amount of money that would have to be spent if as much 
as was needed was available all at once and it was spent intelligently, 
so that the floods would not carry away one year what had been 
placed in position the year before—spent by the one spending having 
means to do it at the proper times, and to see that what was done was 
properly protected and that the work done was not imperiled. 

That is the reason I say, Mr. Chairman, that the work will be done 
by the Government, and I say again that we do not come here, onerous 
as this tax is, to escape from our burden; we are not driven here, and 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


19 


these conventions are not called together, for the purpose of escaping 
this taxation. Few who attend the conventions bear the burden of 
that taxation. We have borne it in the past, and with the aid of the 
Government we are willing to bear it in the future, but what we 
want is to have the Government sajq “ We are willing to add that to 
your efforts w T hich will give you safety; ” to say to the capitalists of 
the wmrld, “ Behind these levees you can place your money, knowing 
that it is protected by the Government; ” and we want to be able to 
hold out to the laborers of the world an invitation—for here in this 
part of the world there is a greater demand and return for their labor 
than at any other place on the top of the globe—and we want to be 
able to say to them, “ Here you can labor and rest in safety, because 
this Government guarantees that this work will be maintained.” 

So, as I say, it is not to escape the burden that we have borne that 
we are here. And as to what should be given by the Government, 
that rests within the discretion of the committee and of the Congress. 
But there is this to be considered, that if it is well to do it, you want 
to do it now; you want to do it just as rapidly as the money can be 
expended. If you know that you are going to do this work, do it so 
that you know you are not going to have to spend dollar for dollar in 
repairing work that has been swept away. Every high water through 
which the work is postponed menaces your entire work. Millions of 
dollars that you have invested will be swept away by a single flood; 
and not only that, but the local boards are your partners, Mr. Chair¬ 
man, in this labor. They have been your partners, contributing three 
dollars to your one, ever since you have gone into this, and they are 
willing to be your partners in the future. You do not want by your 
delay to hazard the bankruptcy of your partners. 

The flood of 1893 cost over $5,000,000 in loss of life and agricultural 
products. The flood of 1906, if the levees are not placed in condition, 
may make that loss of $5,000,000 seem a paltry thing. You want to 
do that work so that your completed system is left to the districts to 
maintain, if you see fit to leave it to them, and not as it is now—a sys¬ 
tem which every engineer along the line of the Mississippi knows is 
simply dependent upon the caprice of the flood, and which may be 
swept away by the next spring’s rain. You can finish that, put it in 
its completed shape, for $15,000,000. I mean to say that the Govern¬ 
ment can do it for that. If you give us under this appropriation 
$1,000,000 a year for this 1,140 miles of levees, that is barely enough 
to maintain it if you had it completed. Give us $4,000,000 for four 
years, and complete the work which you have entered upon. 

It is no answer to this, Mr. Chairman, to say that there are merito¬ 
rious demands from other sections. Test it. Is the work worth doing 
anywhere? Is it the duty of the Government to do it? Can anyone 
else but the Government do it? And where these questions are 
answered in the affirmative, then make the expenditure, and it is a 
wise expenditure and a good expenditure of the Government’s money. 

The Chairman. Let me ask you just two or three questions. What 
share of the total appropriations, of the expenditures for rivers and 
harbors, do vou think should be given for the Mississippi Fiver ? 

Mr. Percy. I do not know that the matter should be decided in that 
way. The question is, What does the Mississippi Fiver need? I 
could not answer that, as to what share of the total should be given to 
the Mississippi Fiver. 


20 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


The Chairman. We have the same argument from at least a hun¬ 
dred other sources all the time. They say the question is as to what 
they need. We have to equalize them. 

Mr. Percy. Then you have to look to the national character of 
the work, Mr. Chairman, and the magnitude of it, and see what is 
necessary. 

Just one other thing : The most of the work that this committee is 
doing in the appropriations for various harbors and cities, all of 
which are wise and right, that work is frequently permanent. We 
might be satisfied with what you are giving us with the million dol¬ 
lars a year you are giving us, we might be willing to struggle on with 
this conflict at that rate, but you are imperiling every year your own 
investment. It is not like building a house, where you can stop if 
driven to it because of lack of funds, and later you can go back and 
find the house there as you left it. 

The Chairman. The argument is very strong with regard to the 
levees, but it is not exceptional, for in many other cases the work has 
to be finished before it can be used, and it is liable to destruction if it 
is left. 

Mr. Percy. So it is, in some instances. 

The Chairman. As, for instance, in the case of breakwaters. How 
many crevasses were there in this district? 

Mr. Percy. Only one. 

The Chairman. What is the present condition of the levees to 
resist ordinarv floods ? Suppose that we have only an ordinary flood 
in 1905? 

Mr. Percy. The ordinary high water we would be protected from 
by the existing levees. It is the high waters that come every three or 
four years, or four or five years, that do the damage. 

The Chairman. Why must this levee be raised four or five feet ? 

Mr. Percy. Because the high water in this district was in some 
places more than a foot higher than the levee for 4 miles. I saw the 
levee raised more than 1 foot with the water lapping over it with 
every wave. That was raised by sacks, mere temporary work, which 
was done at a cost at that particular place of about $40,000. That 
work was purely temporary, and had to be put up to prevent the water 
running over the top of the levee and submerging the whole country. 
A raise of 2 feet simply puts it about 12 inches over the last high 
water. 

The Chairman. I believe the last flood was more severe than its 
predecessor, in 1897 ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. And more severe than others? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. In how many places would you say that the levees 
were threatened in your own district ? 

Mr. Percy. They were threatened along the entire 200 miles. 

The Chairman. That is, the crevasses would be likely at any point? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. You think it difficult to select the weak places? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; at some places there are only a few miles 
where we have been able to reach Government grade—that is, the 
grade that the Government engineers say would give safety. Those 
places are safe, but the works need raising and also enlargement. 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


21 


The Chairman. What would you say with reference to the con¬ 
struction of levees. Are they threatened with undermining by the 
river ? 

Mr. Percy. No, sir; not except where the river has caved up rapidly 
to within a short distance. 

The Chairman. That is where revetment is needed ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; the Longwood leevee in our district, one of 
the largest in the district and one of the worst threatened points 
always in previous years, because of the poor foundation for it, and 
because of the exposed position to water wash, that levee was built up 
to grade and built up to the river bank. It has never been a source of 
anxiety since. But an examination within the last three months 
showed that it has caved up to within 300 feet of the face of that levee, 
and that it was still caving in at the rate of more than half the dis¬ 
tance in a year. That means that that levee has to be relocated within 
two years. 

The Government engineers have made an estimate of the cost, and 
it appears that that levee has to be put back for two miles or more. 
The cost of the entire work, including any damages and effects of 
water, and so forth, is $500,000, and nine miles of a trunk-line railroad 
will have to be removed—-moved back, and the entire traffic on that 
road will have to be interrupted during that work. 

The Chairman. If the levee system is to be completed, what will 
be the principal source of expenditure, for revetments to prevent 
caving, or for the construction of levees proper ? 

Mr. Percy. The principal source of cost would be where it would 
become necessary to relocate a levee on the ground and the moving. 
Where you locate the levee back you are bound to take the chance 
of some extraordinary caving reaching it within the next ten years. 

The Chairman. What would you say as to the general policy of the 
Government, as to what we should recommend in this committee, in 
regard to the protection of all lands abutting on rivers from flood or 
from the ocean? Now, I notice in the resolutions presented here that 
there is a recommendation as to St. Louis and Kansas City. What 
would you say as to the policy that we should pursue there ? 

Mr. JPercy. That was simply that the Government engineers should 
investigate and report if anything could be done by the Government 
to prevent the recurring floods there. What I should say ay as the 
proper way would be to handle these questions as they are presented 
to you and in the order of magnitude and merit as these claims seem 
to warrant. You can not at one sesion of Congress, or you can not 
iioav, map out Avhat will be the limits of the river and harbor expendi¬ 
tures, but you can say “ here is a work Ave have got to do,” and you 
can say that here is a work that is worthy of care, and this is a work 
the magnitude of which is knoAvn. 

The Chairman. Of course Ave do not blame you for your earnest¬ 
ness, but there are many other things which are presented to us with 
equal earnestness. Hoav about the Missisisppi River above Cairo? 

Mr. Percy. The people up there are much better able to present 
their claims to you than I am. (Laughter.) 

The Chairman. PIoav about the Missouri River. That is another 
question ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; that is a matter that worries the Missouri 
man. 


22 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


The Chairman. That, of course, is a very serious question for the 
committee, as to what should be the general policy in regard to it. I 
think it is only due to the committee and to you to say that we have 
before us $500,000,000 of estimates, and our bill does not carry more 
than $25,000,000 a year. Now, doing the best we can to take care of 
the estimates, it is a difficult matter. Anything you do to stimulate 
and educate the public sentiment in these matters will help us, of 
course. 

Mr. Percy. There is one thing certain, you must get away from 
that limit of $25,000,000. 

Mr. Fairchild. Mr. Chairman, as you have been talking, it has 
seemed to me that questions of this nature we make a great mistake in 
not treating as a whole; we make a mistake in treating them as merely 
annual affairs. 

Now, you are going to build this canal, and you are going to issue 
bonds to provide for the whole enterprise. Here is a thing which is 
not like others that you have suggested, but which will last for all 
time in its importance. It is not like the question of keeping a harbor 
clear, of dredging the annual accretion of deposits in a harbor, but it 
is doing something such as the building of a canal, such as we are 
doing in the State of New York in making the barge canal through 
that State, which is for all time, as that is there. 

Now, it seems to me that wise statesmanship would take that in 
view, and if need be, issue bonds—do that which does the work most 
effectively and economically and expeditiously. It seems to me that 
the time has come when these great questions, and particularly a ques¬ 
tion like this which is of such vast importance to us and of such a 
permanent nature, ought to be considered in some such way, and not 
made to fit into the^annual revenue of the Government. 

The Chairman. Then, do I understand you that you would advo¬ 
cate the issue of bonds for this purpose ? 

Mr. Fairchild. I would. 

The Chairman. For river and harbor improvements? 

Mr. Fairchild. I would, where they are of this permanent nature, 
like the building of a canal, like the doing of that sort of thing. I 
think that economy and wise finance would treat the subject in that 
way and provide for the funds as they can be wisely expended, irre¬ 
spective of annual revenue. That is the v T ay I would do it if I v T as 
an individual doing it, and if I w T as the United States and had these 
things on hand I would do it in that w^ay. 

Mr. Bishop. I would like to ask one question. You have had a 
great deal of experience in public affairs. The committee is largely 
up against this proposition and must assume some policy in its own 
defense in reference to it. Setting aside the Mississippi River, to 
which the Government is already pledged in a measure, would you 
advocate the policy of the Government caring for the banks of a 
river to prevent the erosion of private property ? 

The Chairman. The banks of rivers ? 

Mr. Bishop. Yes, sir, the banks of rivers. 

The Chairman. That, of course, must apply to all property and all 
characters of projects. 

Mr. Fairchild. I think that, as a rule, I should. 

Mr. Bishop. That is, without reference to navigation. 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


23 


Mr. Fairchild. Not in reference to navigation. Where it is a 
matter that you can see is of importance extending beyond the local¬ 
ity, where it affects the country as a whole in its interests in any way, 

I should say that the United States should take whatever they deter¬ 
mined should be its share of that. 

The Chairman. Now, is it not true that the protection of all lands 
is of interest to the country at large, that is, the protection of agri¬ 
cultural or other lands bordering upon rivers ? 

Mr. Fairchild. That is quite true. Of course the thing has got to 
be treated in a practical, sensible way, but there are some cases where 
you would fear to say that the interests of the country as a whole was 
not enough in it; there are others that will be doubtful cases, and 
there are others where it is manifestly so. 

The Chairman. That is a question of great importance to us, Mr. 
Fairchild, because if we undertake that protection of land against 
floods and erosions, almost immediately .the amount which must be ap¬ 
propriated for that purpose will be well in excess of the annual 
amounts we are now expending for all the affairs included in our 
rivers and harbors bill, and everything. And this is true, and this 
has been one strong argument used in favor of the appropriations for 
levees of the Mississippi River, that it is a fact that the abutting 
property has paid half and more than half of the expense of the im¬ 
provements down there. In that way this matter has been distin¬ 
guished from the rest. Originally the argument, of course, was that 
it was in the interest of navigation, and to an extent certainly very 
plausible arguments can be made that it benefits our navigation now. 

Mr. Fairchild. It does benefit navigation; there is no doubt 
about it, and on that ground alone it is, of course, very important. 
But it is a very much broader question than that. We would not hes¬ 
itate to spend any amount of money in acquiring a property which 
we can acquire in this way if it was an original proposition some¬ 
where of acquiring it some place in the world, and we would not hesi¬ 
tate to issue bonds for that purpose. Now, this thing is of a great 
deal more importance than your isthmian canal. 

The Chairman. That has not been the general sentiment of 
Congress. 

Mr. Fairchild. It is, and justifies that sort of thing—treating it 
on a large scale, with bond issues if necessary, I say. If that sort of 
thing is to be done it should be done on the same principle on which 
you build your isthmian canal. 

The Chairman. Here is another question relating to this. Some 
years ago we could not pass a bill in the House but what the Senate 
* would put on amendments appropriating very large sums for pur¬ 
poses of irrigation. Now if we adopt the general principle that 
money should be appropriated where the value of the land will be 
increased, and arable areas extended, do we not adopt the other prin¬ 
ciple, that monev must be expended for a great variety of subjects, 
not only making lands available by irrigation, but giving them pro¬ 
tection against natural calamities? Do we not do that? 

Mr. Fairchild. Very likely. 

The Chairman. Do we not logically come to that conclusion ? 

Mr. Fairchild. Very likely. But 1 think we must remember that 
in many directions the United States Government has entered upon 


24 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


that sort of work. It has entered upon it and it is going to do it. 
There is no use closing our eyes to the fact that we are not going back 
to the way that we used to do things. The United States Govern¬ 
ment is going on to do this kind of thing. We might as well make up 
our minds to that, and that being the case I do not see why we should 
not proceed, in view of that state of things, and do it comprehensively 
and systematically and in the most economical and effective way. It 
may be that we started entirely on a wrong basis in doing these things 
by the National Government at all, but we are doing them and we are 
going on to do them. 

The Chairman. There is one point, of course, in this connection, 
that is pertinent to the work of this committee. Strictly speaking, our 
work should be limited to these appropriations which have to do with 
navigation. 

Mr. Fairchild. Yes, I know. 

The Chairman. The deepening and improvement of rivers would 
improve the harbors as well. This question is before us because at the 
beginning it was argued that these levees were for the sake of naviga¬ 
tion. We have continued them, and they are carried on our bill, 
partly as a matter of custom. 

Mr. Fairchild. But after all, the Congress and the country has 
ratified your action. They know that a large amount of your expendi¬ 
ture has been outside, really beyond, the subject of navigation, and it 
has become an established thing, it seems to me, that this committee 
does take these larger interests into consideration. 

The Chairman. I hardly know an exception outside of this. The 
tendency has been to restrict expenditures to matters pertaining to 
rivers and harbors. This is true, that we all recognize the magnitude 
of the problem down there, and that it has been the settled policy of 
the Government for twenty years to recognize the great importance of 
developing those plans. It has, however, seemed to us that the benefit 
to the abutting property was such that that property should carry its 
share of the burden. 

Mr. Fairchild. I think that is true. 

The Chairman. Here are lands worth only $2 or $3 an acre that 
may be made worth $50 or $60 an acre. 

Mr. Fairchild. Yes. 

The Chairman. Now, is it quite right that that land owned by 
private parties, not an acre of it by the Government, or transferred 
to the States, should be so increased in value at the exclusive cost of 
the National Government? 

Mr. Fairchild. No; of course, when you put it that way, that is 
not correct. That is not correct, but even that applies to all kinds 
of things that you do; that unearned increment which was Henry 
George's favorite runs everywhere. In some countries they do those 
things a little better than we do. For instance, I noticed the system 
of street opening in Birmingham, England. Here in New York, for 
instance, if we want to open a street we take just the amount of land 
necessary for the opening of that street, and we assess the adjoining- 
owners for the benefits and the city pays a portion. In Birmingham 
they take a great deal more land than is actually necessary for the 
opening of the street, pay everybody for it when "they take" it, sell it 
on long leases—the land that is improved—and it does not cost the 
city or anybody anything. That is not our system, but everything we 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


25 


clo gives that unearned increment to somebody—almost everything 
you are doing. 

The Chairman. The question is this, does the general improvement 
of a river or a harbor confer any such benefit on the adjacent property 
as does this improvement by the construction of levees? Of course 
every bill we pass, every improvement of a harbor increases the value 
of the property. 

Mr. Fairchild. Of course. 

The Chairman. For instance, take the harbor of your own city— 
New York Harbor; the appropriations for that harbor increase 
the value of the property in the city, but do they increase that value 
in any such percentage as does this improvement? 

Mr. Fairchild. Why, Mr. Chairman, I suppose if you did not 
keep continually improving and taking care of that harbor property 
in New York would become almost valueless; and where are you 
going to draw the line as to where it comes? 

The Chairman. But is it not a question of the proposition in which 
it benefits the adjacent property? This benefits this land to the 
extent of increasing its value ten to twenty times over. Is the prop¬ 
erty in New York benefited, increased in value, ten to twenty times 
by what we do in the harbor ? 

Mr. Fairchild. You mean,* suppose we had a harbor all stopped up 
so that ships could not get up beyond Sandy Hook, and you should 
come and dig it out and make a way across to that city, what would 
be the effect on property ? 

The Chairman. Certainly; that is not similar to this question, 
because it is a comparatively small expense in proportion to the result 
of this thing, while this is a very much larger expense. 

Mr. Fairchild. No, that would be fully as large an expense in 
proportion to the result obtained then. But of course if you go into 
that question, I think you have got to revise your whole system and 
go into an ascertainment of exactly how much benefit is coming to 
the localities and how much of the expense they shall bear, and then 
you have laid out a task of investigation which has almost no end. 

Now it would appear that those people down there have put a bur¬ 
den upon themselves of all that they can bear with their present 
resources. You go and add some millions of dollars to what you 
give to help them, and you improve resources down there very much, 
indeed. 

Nov/, unless you can devise some system by which the United States 
is going to take possession of those lands, improve the river, and then 
sell the lands and get the profit of it, which would be a business thing 
to do, you have got to take the chances of some people making more 
than their share out of the improvement, just as it is everywhere else. 

The Chairman. But is this the real point? I tried to make this 
clear before; is not the added value here altogether out of proportion 
to what it is in the ordinary river and harbor ? Here it is a conceded 
fact that these lands are worth only three or four dollars an acre, and 
that they will come to have a value of ten or twenty times as great 
after the improvement of these levees. Suppose you take the im¬ 
provement of the Ohio River, for which a considerable amount is 
sought. Does the money expended there increase the value of prop- 
ertv along the river in any such proportion as here? 


26 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Mr. Fairchild. No: probably not. But I do not think it is any 
argument against making the appropriation that this is a far greater 
benefit and will increase the national wealth a great deal more. 
When you come to think that there is no other way of doing it, that 
the present property has been taxed to the utmost extent that it can 
be, then to produce the other result this other money has got to come. 
If people are benefited by that in a greater degree in some localities 
than in others, owing to the conditions, I do not see that you can 
gauge it. 

The Chairman. There still remains the fact that we must take 
those facts into consideration. It may not be different in kind, but 
we have to notice differences in degree. 

Mr. Fairchild. Well, I do not think that makes any difference as 
to the appropriation. If you can devise any way to get that back 
out of the future benefits, well and good; but if you can not, that is 
no reason why you should not devise some way by which this improve¬ 
ment could be made. 

The Chairman. I think the committee is fully of the opinion that 
certain appropriations should be made. 

Mr. Caldwell. I think you have an entirely erroneous opinion of 
the land prices down there, Mr. Chairman. I can not conceive how 
anyone would make a statement here that the building of these levees 
would increase the value of these lands ten or twenty times over. 

Now let me state the facts as they exist down there now. Cultivated 
land is worth so much per acre according to its location in relation to 
railroad or transportation facilities, in accordance with its freshness, 
and in accordance with its improvement. Unimproved lands, wood¬ 
lands, are worth about so much per acre to-day in accordance with 
their location with reference to transportation, density of population, 
natural lay of the land as to drainage and levee protection. Now 
there is a great deal of land down in that country, unimproved land, 
that by many people is considered fully protected, but the people who 
consider it so are not so farsighted, because with the system not com¬ 
pleted we can not say that any of it is protected. But, granted, here 
is a tract of woodland that is considered fully protected. 

Now, that tract of woodland, irrespective of the value of the tim¬ 
ber thereon, which is an entirely different proposition—and we are 
taking it for agricultural purposes only—-is worth $5 an acre, 
whereas in some other portion of the Delta another tract of land not 
rendered valuable by timber, but in the minds of the people fully 
protected from overflow, is worth $2 per acre. What gives value to 
those lands? They are not increased in value ten or twenty times 
by putting up levees and completing the levee system. They never 
have been. Lands which before the completing of the levee" system 
were worth $2 an acre never jumped up to $20 or $40 after the levees 
were built. But the lands become valuable as the timber is taken 
off, as ditches are made, as houses are put upon the lands, as the plow 
goes into the ground, and as people come there and live upon it. 
That is what makes that valuable, and not the mere fact of the 
building of the levees. 

Now, for us to get the people there, to get the houses and the ditches 
there, to get the plow in the ground, we must have the levees, and I 
think you are making a great mistake if you think that the increase 
in value by this is anything like so great as that; and if I had been 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


27 


asked the question as to the increase in value of the property in the 
city of New York by river and harbor improvement as against these 
improvements in the Delta, I would have said that the increase in the 
Delta is but a drop in the bucket as compared to the increase in value 
of the lands of New York. 

The Chairman. Of course that was more by way of illustration. 
I have been reading with a great deal of interest the pamphlets giving 
an account of the proceedings in New Orleans, and this estimate that 
I have spoken of is made in these addresses and pamphelts. So it 
does not originate entirety with me. 

Mr. Caldwell. People do all the time confuse those two ideas, as to 
the productive area of land and the increased value per acre. 

STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES F. HUHLIEN. 

Mr. Huhlien. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, you 
can no doubt realize my embarrassment at being asked to speak after 
those who have preceded me. I might say that Kentucky has, as you 
all know, an immense mileage of navigable streams, both within and 
along its borders. It has a comparatively small levee district, and I 
will not attempt to refer to airy phase of that question. But if you 
will pardon me, I would like to indulge in a little personal shop talk. 
I am a manufacturer at Louisville, and since the 1st of January it 
has been my duty to contract for many hundreds of tons of pig iron 
for our own business which we have bought in the Birmingham dis¬ 
trict. We have bought many hundred tons of bar iron from the 
Ohio and Indiana mills, and it is my intention in a day or two to 
return home by way of the Pittsburg district and to contract there for 
several hundred thousand tons of steel for our business. 

I take the liberty of referring to that simply because I believe that 
we are typical of many hundreds, if not thousands, of industries all 
over the country. That is the interest that the manufacturing indus¬ 
tries of this country have in the trade of the great delta, because we, 
along with hundreds, if not thousands, of other manufacturers, find 
our market largely, if not entirety, in this great delta of the Missis¬ 
sippi. Those people, as has been stated, buy everything they consume, 
they manufacture nothing and will hardly manufacture anything, 
and they sell all that they produce as raw material to keep the mills of 
our country busy. We believe that this great delta which would be 
reclaimed by these proposed improvements is one of paramount im¬ 
portance to this country, if you please, and we believe that it is well 
established that these levees simply expedite the current of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River thereby causing it to scour a deeper channel and more 
readily confine itself within its banks, and we believe as manufac¬ 
turers that the transportation interests of the Mississippi River are 
facilitated by these levees. 

We believe that the property all along the Mississippi Valley would 
be greater, the internal commerce of that whole section, the interstate 
commerce of the whole section, would be facilitated by these improve¬ 
ments ; and as Kentuckians, and as patrons of the iron and steel inter¬ 
ests and many other interests of the other parts of the country, we 
would be very glad if your committee would recognize what we 
believe to be the vastness of this great project. We believe that the 
best is none too good for any part of this great country, and we believe 


28 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


that a project as great and meritorious as this is merits the most gen¬ 
erous and most liberal consideration at your hands. 

STATEMENT OF MR. ALEX. Gr. COCHRAN, REPRESENTING THE 
MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY SYSTEM. 

Mr. Cochran. Just before the holding of the levee convention at 
New Orleans, invitations were extended to many persons throughout 
the country to attend, and among others to Mr. Gould, president of 
that vast system of railroads known as the Gould system, and I will 
read to the committee the brief reply which he made: 

I regard your convention to be held in New Orleans on the 27tli as a very 
important event for the entire Mississippi Valley and all the great and diversi- 
filed interests therein, and I hope the views and plans for levee protection that 
will be formulated will be so desirable to all interests, and including those of 
your great city, that they will commend themselves to the public at large and to 
the Congress of the United States, where it is hoped liberal appropriations will 
be provided. 

The railroad interests I am connected with have under way and partially com¬ 
pleted a low grade line from East St. Louis, Ill., to New Orleans, crossing the 
Mississippi River on a great bridge at Thebes, Ill. When this line is completed 
it will be a water-grade line, parallelling the Mississippi and opening up virgin 
forests upon its west bank, and in addition it will make accessible great areas 
of farming lands susceptible of a high degree of cultivation if made safe from 
inundation. We are also, at great expense, rebuilding the railroad between 
Little Rock, Ark., and Coffeyville, Kans., and are constructing a new low-grade 
line of railroad in the White River Valley to connect our Kansas City lines with 
the main line of the Iron Mountain road. All of this, with necessary expen¬ 
ditures for equipment and other railroad appurtenances will amount to from 
$40,000,000 to $50,000,000, and the work has been under way for two or three 
years with the belief on our part that this great investment, the bulk of which 
will be in the Mississippi Valley, will be protected from damage by floods and 
inundation. The completion of our plans hereinabove outlined will inure 
greatly to the benefit of the city of New Orleans and largely add to her mari¬ 
time trade. 

Mr. Gould very much regretted that imperative engagements in 
New York made it imposible for him to appear in person before the 
committee, and he has requested me to speak in his stead. 

I am interested in this question from a railroad point of view, 
because I am a citizen of the great metropolis of the Mississippi 
Valley, St. Louis, and because seven or eight of the best years of my 
professional life, prior to becoming connected w T ith railroad enter¬ 
prises, were spent with that great engineer of the Mississippi, Capt. 
James B. Eads, whose counsel I was up to the time of his death. The 
Mississippi River has, therefore, always been a most interesting prob¬ 
lem to me, and its phenomena a matter of careful study and thought. 

Now, of course, it is apparent to every gentleman of the committee 
that the question of railroad development in this vast alluvial delta 
is one dependent absolutely upon the proposition whether the lands 
through which the railroads are expected to run shall or shall not be 
protected from inundation. It is idle to suppose that great capitalists, 
who have at heart, of course, the interests of the country through 
which they run—as being identical with their own interests—will 
expend the vast sums of money necessary to construct and equip rail¬ 
roads through this valley, unless they have some assurance that, when 
completed, their investment will not be swept away and destroyed, or 
unless they can have some further assurance that it will not cost more 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


29 


than the total amount of revenue earned for replacement or repairs 
because of injuries done by the floods. I can speak not only for our 
system of roads, which amounts to between 15,000 and 16,000 miles, 
but I am sure that every other railroad system which has lines extend¬ 
ing through this Mississippi Valley is deeply in sympathy with this 
movement to reclaim those lands and protect them by levees, so that 
railroad construction, which has been greatly impeded, or absolutely 
prevented, in the past, by reason of periodical overflows, may be com¬ 
pleted and protected. Of course no argument is necessary before this 
committee that railroads are indispensable to the development of that 
vast territory. They will certainly be there if they can be protected 
from overflow. They will as certainly not be there if they can not 
be so protected, because it is idle to suppose that they will be con¬ 
structed unless they can be guaranteed substantial protection from 
periodical inroads of the river which would ruin the property. 

There are certain propositions in connection with this problem 
which I suppose we may consider as practically conceded. First, it 
has been setled by Congress that it is proper to make appropriations 
for levee improvement, irrespective of the consideration whether that 
improvement conduces to navigation of the river or not, and, as all 
the members of the committee are aware, there has been for some 
years past set apart from the appropriations for the Mississippi River 
Commission a certain amount per annum which has been devoted to 
the building up and strengthening of the levees. With that precedent 
approved by years of experience, it seems to be idle to go into a 
discussion-- 

The Chairman. V r e all concede that, Mr. Cochran. The million 
dollars a year is set aside, and it has been discussed frequently on the 
floor of the House and also in this committee. However, we have 
usually coupled with that the statement that the localities gave as 
much or more than the General Government. 

Mr. Cochran. Of course’ there can be no complaint as to what the 
localities have done, because the records show that these good people 
who live down in that valley have taxed themselves to the utmost, 
have borne burdens heroically and with patience, for the building up 
of this great line of fortifications to protect themselves against that 
great on-rushing enemy. We have, as boys, all read of the dragon 
that lived in the mountains and came down at stated intervals and 
demanded his victims, devouring the people who lived in the valleys 
below. My hair has stood on end many a time, as a boy, reading that 
tale. It makes me think of the great flood of the Mississippi. Those 
people do not produce it, and their country does not produce it; it is 
produced by thirty-two States above them, and it comes rushing down 
through this channel, and swells to a mighty flood which spreads 
abroad, carrying havoc everywhere. 

The Chairman. It is not one dragon only wdiich is raised up 
before us. 

Mr. Cochran. Well, we will have to kill them one at a time, and 
we will begin with this Mississippi dragon. [Great laughter.] 

Down comes this great flood, pouring away from ten States, and 
probably twenty-two others, and here are these people with this rich 
land, undeveloped as yet, capable of supporting many times the num¬ 
ber of its present inhabitants, capable of producing the enormous 
crops of cotton of which Mr. Fairchild has so forcibly spoken (every 



30 RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 

word of what he said I cordially endorse, as well as every word that 
has been said on that same line by other speakers)—here are these 
people to be protected. Now, is that an ordinary case? Are you 
going to look at that as you would at the question of whether a por¬ 
tion of the bank of the Ohio River, upon which I used to live, for 
instance, shall be revetted ? Are you going to look at it as you would 
at the question whether there shall be a wing dam thrown out here or 
there, or whether this or that work shall be done here and there, as is 
ordinarily done for the protection of banks on these streams tributary 
to the Mississippi ? If so, you are going to take hold of this question 
from the view point of the low valley and not from the hilltop. 

This is a question that must be viewed from the mountain top and 
not from the low ground of the valley. Here is a vast region which, 
without the protection of these levees, will be destroyed or rendered 
practically worthless without that protection. Not only so, but there 
is this justification which the committee has for regarding this 
improvement as materially different from others, in that the Govern¬ 
ment of the Unied States has already invested more than $17,000,000 
in this improvement, and it becomes essential for the protection of this 
large amount of Government money already invested that more shall 
be put in to save it. Consider for a moment. Is not that a good 
answer to those who would sajq “ AVe are technically just as much 
entitled to protection as those who live at the mouth of the river?” 
You see, gentlemen, our Government has invested this enormous 
amount of money in these levees. True it is that in the same time we 
were expending this $17,000,000 the people living along the banks of 
this river expended $40,000,000, or rather, from the year 1882, when 
the appropriations commenced, the people expended $28,000,000. 
Now, in view of the $28,000,000 that these people have put in here in 
good faith, and in view of the $17,500,000, say, that the Government 
has put in, we have a vast investment to be protected. We are facing 
a condition and not a theory, and for the protection of that investment 
we should complete this work. 

Gentlemen of the committee, this is no small question. It is a ques¬ 
tion which you must look at from the broadest point of view, and I 
do verily believe, if the good people of the United States could read 
those well-considered arguments that were made before the great 
levee convention at New Orleans in October last, that there is hardly 
a man in the United States who would not vote aye, and stand up, if 
necessary, in favor of this proposition. It is a great, broad, expanded 
theme, that needs great, broad and expanded treatment. We are 
bound to look at it from the broadest and the highest standpoint. 
These people need our help; they must have it. There is no use in 
doling it out to them in small amounts of money year by year. They 
have reached the maximum of their results in the way of raising 
money by taxing themselves. Now we must meet the situation upon 
that basis. A small amount of money spent in the next two or three 
or four years may be of some benefit, but along comes one of these 
tremendous floods, like the flood of 1903, and in a few hours the work 
which has been done has been swept away by that mighty and almost 
resistless tide. 

Now, there is the proposition that confronts you, gentlemen. I 
know the difficulties of this committee; I know how every part of 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 31 

the country is demanding help; I know that in a technical sense the 
Chairman is right when he says: “ Why, so and so asks us for this 
and that. Now, on principle, are we not forced to divide it up and 
give a little here and a little there ? ” I say you are bound to do that 
to a degree, but conditions must control you in this matter. The 
investment that I have spoken of, the demonstrated willingness of all 
these people to put their hands in their pockets and to help along to 
the utmost of their resources, which you do not find in many cases, 
and the grand results to flow from this, must be considered. As to 
the improvement of any of these tributaries of the Mississippi, cer¬ 
tainly in the upper regions where the farms are, and where there are 
agricultural communities, there is no vast overflow, but more cor¬ 
rectly speaking a washing of the banks, and no one will pretend to say 
that there are any such conditions there as prevail down at the mouth 
of the river. 

Now, there is this further consideration which, if you will pardon 
me, I will advert to, because you, Mr. Chairman, have referred to it, 
and I think you touched fairly upon every point in your questions. 
Mr. Chairman, there is this further to be said, and that is that the 
building of the levees promotes navigation and is a part of the 
scheme for the improvement of navigation. When Captain Eads 
first undertook to improve the South Pass of the Mississippi by the 
jetties, the little steam launch in which he and some of his engineers 
w^ent about grounded in less than six feet of water. Now the com¬ 
merce of the world passes through there unimpeded, through a chan¬ 
nel not less than 200 feet in width and 30 feet in depth. Captain 
Eads was always an advocate of and a believer in the levees as instru¬ 
mentalities for the improvement of navigation, and one can see for 
himself, without much study of the technical questions, how mani¬ 
festly this is true. The capacity of a sediment-bearing stream to 
carry the material with which those waters are charged is dependent 
upon two factors—one, the volume of water, and the other the 
velocity with which that water moves. 

Now, if you will look at this map of the Mississippi River you will 
see what I mean. If you allow the Mississippi River to scatter 
over a vast area of country, you are decreasing its volume, and just 
in proportion as you decrease its volume you decrease the carry¬ 
ing power of the current, you increase the friction upon the bottom, 
and the result is that instead of this volume of water passing down 
and carrying its load of detritus to the Gulf, where it is distributed 
over a vast area of deep water, it drops this load and decreases its own 
velocity. If you take a glass of Mississippi River water, it is as dark 
as coffee. Set it aside for a time and you will find that there is an inch 
of detritus at the bottom of it, and the remainder of the water is clear. 
What does this mean? The movement of the water has been stopped, 
and with the stoppage of this movement you have stopped its ability 
to carry this sediment. Now, it is the same in this matter of the 
cutting. The Mississippi River Commission has reported against the 
plan of these cut-offs for the purpose of overflow to let out the sur¬ 
plus water of the river to the one side or the other, holding, first, 
that to do so would build up a bar, and gradually, by building up 
above the curves, would raise instead of lower the flood line of the 
river, and furthermore, the Mississippi River Commission, after care- 


32 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


ful investigation and due consideration, has reported to Congress 
that the levee system adopted and approved by it on lines satisfac¬ 
tory to it is a system in aid of the navigation of the river. 

Certainly the foregoing may be legitimately said in favor of a 
system of levees as an aid to navigation, but if people say, “We want 
you to reclaim our land,” and it should turn out to be a mere matter 
of reclamation of land, pure and simple, without any benefit what¬ 
ever to the general plan of improving the river, there you at once see 
that the two matters differ materially. But whatever way you look 
at it, and from whatever point you view it, the more you study it 
the more you must be convinced that this is a great exigency which 
the committee should meet in a great and broad-minded way. 

STATEMENT OF MR. 0. M. KILLOUGH. 

Mr. Killottgh. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I shall detain you a 
very few moments. I have been allotted by the chairman of our dele¬ 
gation ten minutes in which to tell this committee all about the bene¬ 
fits that the great valley has derived from levees, and what the needs 
of the levees are. I might very readily in that time give you all 
phases of the canal question, or settle the tariff question or the free 
silver question, but I feel totally inadequate to settle this question in 
that length of time. So I shall confine myself to one suggestion. 

I come from a levee district in my State, and I must state things 
from our own personal experience, for I have no varied experience. 
This district is one of the youngest in length of maintenance along the 
river; some 230 miles in length and 20 to 50 miles in width. Until 
the levee system was begun in 1893 that country was a howling wil¬ 
derness. We had a Mississippi River 50 miles wide every year,nearly. 
That river deposited flotsam and jetsam of all descriptions that it 
gathered up in its onward rush to the sea, and that deposit consisted 
of human as well as other waste, and some other things detrimental to 
agricultural interests. We had a country infested with a migratory 
class of people, who for a number of years immediately after the war 
and down until within a recent time reflected no great credit upon the 
great State of Arkansas. We flattered, ourselves, and always con¬ 
tended, and do yet, that we were not responsible for the presence 
of these gentlemen, but had them because the sheriff of the county 
they came from was a crippled man, or they were more fleet than he 
was, and escaped, because they do not grow on Arkansas soil, and 
we do not sprout that sort of people. 

Now, we feel safe in the hands of the Mississippi River Commis¬ 
sion. We feel that, if their plans are followed out and they are 
allowed full and free control, the levee interests will be in no bad 
hands. I have not seen this suggested, and I wish to make the sug¬ 
gestion, and it will be all that 1 have to say' to the committee. The 
Commission, in alloting the $2,000,000 a year that has been allotted 
to the Mississippi River, proposed at the last meeting of the Commis¬ 
sion that the sum of $2,000,000 be allotted to the district at once, 
rather than to follow the agreement made at the prior meeting of the 
Commission. 

The Chairman. Two million dollars for levees? 

Mr. Killotjgh. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. The ensuing year? 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


33 


Mr. Kili iOUGH. Yes, sir; instead of the $1,000,000 for each year. 
That allotment of the Commission failed to meet the approval of the 
Secretary of War, and the money was denied to us. Immediately 
following a great overflow it is clearly apparent to those familiar 
with the levees and the river itself that a small sum of money is much 
more advantageous and can be handled to greater advantage to the 
people of the district than a considerable sum spread out over a length 
of time. You take your canal, and when you have dug a mile you can 
go away and leave it and go back again with a surety of finding the 
hole there, and you can continue your canal; but when you build 1 
mile of levee and do not follow that up or build it sufficiently strong, 
and you go away and leave it and come back, you will find a canal 
instead of a levee, and the last vestige of the levee is gone and it is 
usually a vast ditch. If we should have the $2,000,000 allotted by the 
Commission, I should feel that our district, which is the worst district 
along the river, would be greatly benefited. 

It has now a bonded debt of $1,500,000. It is settling rapidly, 
and it is fertile land; and if we had that money, or, in other words, 
if the recommendation of the Mississippi River Commission were 
carried out, I should feel that our trip has not been in vain. 

The Chairman. Mr. Parker, is there a pamphlet of the proceed¬ 
ings of your levee commission in New' Orleans ? 

Mr. Parker. Yes, sir; a copy was sent to every member of the 
committee. 

The Chairman. I would like to have that. 

Mr. Parker. I will see that copies are sent you, Mr. Chairman. 
Before adjourning, Mr. Chairman, I desire to thank you, sir, and 
the entire committee, for our delegation, for the courtesy and con¬ 
sideration with w^hich you have listened to us, and I earnestly hope 
that we can report results when we get back. 

' Thereupon the committee adjourned. 


[Hearings before the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, in relation to 
the improvement of the Mississippi River, May 12, 1890.] 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL CYRUS B. COMSTOCK. 

General Cyrus B. Comstock, president of the Mississippi River Commission, 
appeared before the committee. . . 

The Chairman. Are you chairman of the Mississippi River Commission ? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. . . 

The Chairman. How long have you been connected with the Mississippi River 
Commission? 

General Comstock. Since its organization, in 1879. 

The Chairman. Have you ever given personal attention to the work? 

General Comstock. Prior to that I was a member of the board on the improve¬ 
ment of the Mississippi River, which reported on the improvement of the river 
prior to the organization of the Mississippi River Commission 

The Chairman. Are you familiar with the Lake Borgne outlet improvement? 

General Comstock. In some degree. _ .. 

Senator Gibson. I suggest that General Comstock make a statement of the 
plan that the Commission has adopted, the work done, and the results achieved. 

The Chairman. I want to ask one or two more preliminary questions, and then 

Have you examined with any attention the recent inundations of the Mis¬ 
sissippi? 

R and h app— 05-3 



34 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


General Comstock. So far as the data has been worked up I have. 

The Chairman. The committee is desirous of getting, so that all money that 
Congress may appropriate for the Mississippi River shall not he wasted, as much 
information as you are able to give them in relation to the Mississippi River, its 
improvements, the method of improvements, etc., of course including the pro¬ 
posed outlet at Lake Borgne; and if you will go on and make your statement in 
your own way it will be agreeable to the committee. 

General Comstock. The Mississippi River has widths of a mile and a half and 
possibly two miles in some places. In the worst places the Commission has 
begun narrowing the river, or attempting to do so, down to a width of 3,500 feet 
in expectation of improving the low-water channel. They have tried it at one 
place, Plum Point. They have built, where they attempted to narrow the river, 
dikes out into the river and have put brush-work aprons on those dikes to keep 
the water from flowing through and make the water still, or partially still, behind 
them. 

That is to produce contraction. Contraction has been produced and large de¬ 
posits have been obtained behind the dikes built in that way. Under contraction 
on one side of the river, the river may cave very rapidly, and it may be necessary 
to protect the opposite bank to keep the river from running away from you. 
Where there is a caving bend you want to hold that beind in order to prevent the 
river changing its form and carrying away the other works. These caving 
banks are held by putting on them brush aprons and covering them with stone. 
That is the general method the Commission has used. 

At Plum Point the water sometimes before the work began went down to 4J or 
5 feet. In the last six or eight years the lowest it has been has been about 8^ 
feet, and a very decided improvement in the river lias been made. 

The Chairman. What is the length of that? 

General Comstock. Thirty-four miles. The work of the Commission has been 
confined to some 15 or 16 miles. 

The Chairman. There the result has been satisfactory to the Commission? 
General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

At the Lake Providence reach, 60 or 70 miles* above Vicksburg, the same 
method was undertaken; pile dikes were built in that way and enormous 
deposits were obtained. There was revetment of banks at certain places, 
especially at Pilcher’s Point, Louisiana Bend. Those revetments became dam¬ 
aged. The appropriation for them for one year was not made, and in the 
following year Congress prohibited us from building revetments. The conse¬ 
quence was that we lost that work, something like 2 miles of it. That also ’ 
interfered with our doing anything below; that is, the absence of money in the 
first year and the prohibition the second year, covering a period of three years 
altogether. 

The same thing affected us down at the tow-head below at Myersville, and 
there also we lost a mile and a half or two miles of revetment. 

The dike work has essentially produced the results it was built to obtain. 
So far for works in the bed of the river. 

The Commission has also expected to improve the river by building levees on 
its bank. It has spent in building those levees something like three millions. 
Those two methods combine the work done by the Commission. 

In reference to the outlet question, I made a report some time ago on the 
specific outlet proposition of Captain Cowden at Lake Borgne, and I do not 
know that I can do better than to read it. 

Senator Gibson. I did not understand you to say, General, what the results 
achieved at Lake Providence were, whether the channel responded, what the 
behavior of the river was, after you completed or partially completed your 
work. 

General Comstock. The channel has been better there since the work has 
been carried on so far as it has been done. 

Senator Gibson. How much have you spent on the levees? 

General Comstock. Something over $3,000,000. 

Senator Gibson. What proportion of the levees erected by you has given 
way in this flood:? 

General Comstock. I am not able to answer that. 

Senator Gibson. Some of your subordinates can, probably. 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. What depth of channel was there before you 
commenced? • 

General Comstock. Five or 6 feet; 5 feet probably. 



RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


35 


Senator Washburn. And you have nearly doubled it? 

General Comstock. We have increased it about one-half. 

In regard to the Lake Borgne outlet I would say, a canal a mile in width 
leading from the Mississippi into Lake Borgne, its bottom being everywhere 
10 feet below low water, as proposed by the bill, would, by an approximate 
computation, which is the only one practicable in such a case, divert from 
the Mississippi about 400.000 cubic feet per second, when the stage of the river 
near Lake Borgne is about 7 feet above Gulf level, and 500,000 cubic feet when 
the stage there is about 9 feet. The corresponding stages at Carrollton would 
be about 10 and 12 feet (since the slope would at last be the present high- 
water slope), the maximum stage there being 15.6 above mean Gulf. An outlet 
diverting 400,000 cubic feet per second would lower the highest flood at Car¬ 
rollton by about 6 feet. 

These computations are based on the discharge curve at Carrollton of 1883. 
If more water is forced past Carrollton hereafter by maintaining levees above, 
these figures will need modification. Judging from the effect of local changes 
of flood height elsewhere on the river, this lowering of flood height at Carroll¬ 
ton would die out in something like 200 miles in ascending the river. Since 
for this distance the slopes would be steepened, it follows that velocities would 
be increased, with their destructive effects on the banks of the river and on 
levees. The outlet would do no good to navigation, but rather the reverse. 
The first effect of taking 400,000 cubic feet per second out of tne Mississippi 
would be a large, lowering of the flood surface near the outlet. The flow 
through Lake Borgne would itself be a river of large size. Both theory and 
experience show that when, at all stages, a reduction in the size of a river 
flowing in alluvial soil is made, or the river is split in two, the smaller rivers 
gradually take greater slopes than the main river had. Hence both the main 
river and the new river would gradually increase their slopes to suit the new 
conditions. Since the slope begins at the Gulf, it can not become greater on the 
main stream below Lake Borgne, which is now nearly straight, without increas¬ 
ing flood heights at Lake Borgne. After some years, then, if both routes to the 
sea remain large rivers, the flood level above the outlet would be higher than 
it is now unless (as indeed is not improbable) the large amount of sediment 
which would be dropped into Lake Borgne (where the flood velocities would 
at first be but one-sixth of those in the Mississippi) should close this outlet, 
thus repairing the injury done to the main river. A large diversion of flow 
from the Mississippi to Lake Borgne would also seriously diminish the depth 
at the present mouths of the river. 

For the following reasons, then, no important outlet at Lake Borgne should 
be either undertaken or permitted. 

(1) It would for some years lower the floods at the outlet, accelerate veloci¬ 
ties above it and increase caving and the consequent destruction of levees. 

(2) It would cause shoaling at the present mouths of the river. 

(3) If both the new outlet and the main river below it remained important 
streams—that is, if neither of them closed itself under the action of natural 
causes—the flood heights at Lake Borgne and New Orleans would after some 
years be greater than they are now. 

It may be noted that if the United States desired such an outlet, its con¬ 
struction should be open to public competition instead of being a monopoly. 

That relates only to forming an outlet which shall be a permanent stream. 
I think the water can be spared from the Mississippi River without injury to 
navigation under certain circumstances. 

The Chairman. Do you think that would be desirable? 

General Comstock. I think that is desirable. At the Atchafalaya I think it is 
desirable to take five hundred or six hundred thousand cubic feet per second out 
of the river. In the same connection I have some memorandum as to outlets 
other than this outlet, if you wish to hear it. 

The Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. Before you proceed let me ask you what would be the 
effect immediately on the main stream if you were to make a low-water outlet? 

General Comstock. I think it would shoal up immediately below, but not 
enough to injure navigation. 

Senator Washburn. Taking as much water out as you say you would, it 
would shoal at the jetties? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir; and for 10 miles above there. 

Senator Washburn. And still be an enormous amount of water? 


36 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


General Comstock. Yes, sir; still about one-half or two-thirds of the river, 
unless in making this outlet the whole river saw fit to go this way [indicating], 
which I do not think is probable. It will do no good to navigation and it would 
be of doubtful ultimate benefit to the levees. 

Senator Washburn. What has been the ultimate effect of opening Bonnet 
Carr6? 

General Comstock. Its effect in what way? 

Senator Washburn. Below where it discharges; leads from the Mississippi 
into Lake Pontchartrain. Is that still open? 

General Comstock. It has been closed several years. 

Senator Washburn. What was the effect when it was open? 

General Comstock. I think probably it shoaled the river somewhat below, but 
not enough to interfere with navigation. 

Outlets have often been proposed as a method of reducing flood heights on the 
Mississippi. The immediate results of flood heights are so evident and so bene¬ 
ficial when a large crevasse is formed, the good results of an opening far larger 
than ever occurs naturally, seem so immediate and apparent, that it is not 
strange that many persons look on them as the true remedy for great floods. 

In a letter of February 1. 1890, to the Chief of Engineers, I considered the 
effects of making an outlet a mile wide and to a depth of 10 feet below low 
water from the Mississippi River into Lake Borgne, and need not repeat the dis¬ 
cussion here. In it I assumed what is well known to all persons familiar with 
hydraulics, namely, that a sedimentary river flowing in its own alluvion only 
acquires a stable regimen, when it has taken a slope suitable to its varying dis¬ 
charges and to the material through which it flows; and as a rule that these 
slopes diminish as the size of the river increases and increase as the size of the 
river decreases. It may be well to give some examples of this general fact. 

The South Pass carried in 1875 about one-fourth of the water that the South¬ 
west Pass did. Its slope from the Head of the Passes to its original bar was 
about one-third greater than that of the Southwest Pass. 

The observed discharges of the Atchafalaya in 1882 were from one-seventh to 
one-tenth of those of the Mississippi. Its average slope to the Gulf is double 
that of the Mississippi. 

The Sulina Pass in the delta of the Danube carries two twenty-sevenths of the 
total river flow, while the St. George Pass carries eight twenty-sevenths. The 
slope of the Sulina is one-half greater than that of the St. George Pass. 

These examples are sufficient to illustrate the general rule already stated, 
that sedimentary rivers flowing in their own alluvion take larger slopes the 
smaller they are. Hence, if at Lake Borgne or elsewhere in its Delta the Missis¬ 
sippi were divided into two rivers, since each would be smaller than the present 
river, the two new rivers would go to work to obtain the new and steeper slopes 
suited to dimensions smaller than those of the original river, and hence would 
build up their beds. This process would only cease when the steeper slopes 
needed by each were obtained. Since both rivers would then have one end at 
the Gulf, and have steeper slopes up to their point of divergence than the main 
river now has, the flood surface of the rivers at that point would be higher than 
now. 

There have been cases where the experiment of dividing a river in two has 
been tried by nature or by man. About A. D. 1438 the Adige broke its levees 
and poured its waters south into the Castagnoro and Canale Bianco, which then 
formed a drainage stream parallel to the Po. In 1545 the break had so increased 
that two-thirds of the low-water flow of the Adige and three-fourths of the high- 
water flow went through it. A low dam was built across the Castagnoro to check 
the flow into it, and both rivers raised their beds. In 1678 a new dam was built, 
as the old one was then buried in the deposit. The bed still rose. In 1791 a 
masonry dam 39 feet high, with many archways through it to allow floods to 
pass, was built across the Castagnoro. The bed continued to rise, and the floods 
on the Adige were so high that in 1838 the Castagnoro was permanently closed. 
In the six years following the closure the floods in the Adige fell, and the more 
markedly the nearer the point considered was to the Castagnoro. 

Thus far only outlets have been considered which are permanent rivers. For 
such outlets the effect in finally raising the flood surface of the main river will 
be the greater as the flow of the outlet is more nearly equal to the remaining 
flow in the main river. If the outlet is small, its effect on the main river will be 
small. 

Places where there is no escape except at high stages are sometimes called 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


37 


outlets. For many years prior to the recent closing of levee gaps along the Mis¬ 
sissippi below Red River, and of the gaps which permitted water to escape from 
the vicinity of Turnbulls Island into the Atchafalaya Basin, the maximum flood 
flow past New Orleans was but about 1,100,000 cubic feet per second. This flow 
is ample for all navigation purposes, and no practical gain to navigation will 
result from increasing it. In 1882 it was estimated that about 2,200,000 cubic 
feet per second passed the latitude of Red River mouth. It has been proposed to 
allow only 200,000 cubic feet per second to go down the Atchafalaya, leaving 
1,900,000 or 2,000,000 cubic feet per second to go down the main river. 

In my judgment, until the heights of levees below Red River are largely 
increased, there should be left a free opportunity for the escape overland of 
400,000 cubic feet per second from the vicinity of Turnbulls Island into the 
Atchafalaya Basin, in such floods as those of 1882, in addition to the 200,000 
cubic feet per second which is to go down the Atchafalaya. If such an escape, 
existing only at high water, be called an outlet, then I think it necessary, at 
least for the present. It will do no harm to navigation, which was good enough 
for many years before the escape into the Atchafalaya Basin was reduced. On 
the other hand, to try to force in a great flood, 1,900,000 cubic feet per second 
past New Orleans, with levees at present heights, is sure to renew the disasters 
to levees at or below Red River which have occurred this year. The injury 
resulting from many breaks below Red River is so much greater than that 
resulting from the escape into the Atchafalaya Basin from the vicinity of Turn¬ 
bull’s Island that the lesser interest should yield to the greater until it is possi¬ 
ble to protect both. 

It may be concluded, then, that the reduction, by any large amount, of the flow 
of the Mississippi at Lake Borgne below what it has been for many years will 
be ultimately followed by a rise in the flood heights at that place and a shoaling 
of the river below and at its mouth. 

Also that until levees below Red River are much higher than they are now, 
about 600,000 feet per second in the greatest floods should be allowed to go into 
the Atchafalaya Basin, thus relieving the river below. 

The opinion that the head of the Atchafalaya Basin should not be closed by 
levees was urged by me in the annual report of the Mississippi River Commis¬ 
sion for 1884. 

There is one other question, and that is that leveed rivers raise their beds 
higher and higher as the levees are raised. That is a very essential question in 
levees as long as are those on the Mississippi, and I have some memoranda as to 
them which I can read to the committee. 

The Chairman. The statement has been made that the bed of the Mississippi 
River has risen some seven or eight feet. 

General Comstock. I have heard that. I have examined that question also. 
I have prepared a statement as to that question. 

The statement is often made that leveed rivers raise their beds higher and 
higher as levees are raised, and hence that levees will give no permanent relief 
ngainst overflow. These statements are usually made from theoretical opinions 
and without a thorough knowledge of the theoretical side of the subject, and 
probably without any knowledge of the facts of experience, which alone can lead 
to conclusions entirely safe. The river Po has long been leveed, and it is often 
stated that its bed has risen largely in consequece of levees. The following 
data will show how unfounded is the statement that the bed has risen by 
amounts that are of much importance: 

At the revival of civilization the levees on the Po were complete and continu¬ 
ous from Cremona to the mouth of the Oglio, 49 kilometers, or 58.4 miles. About 
A. D. 1300 they were carried farther down the river, and in the succeeding cen¬ 
turies to near its mouth. In the present century levees have been systematized 
as to height. Four hundred kilometers, or 248-J miles, were below the flood of 
1872. At the end of 1877 it was expected to reduce this to about 30 kilometers, 
or 18 miles. (Cenni monografici sulF idraulica fluviale in Italia. Roma, 1878.) 

Zendrini, in 1720, observed an extreme low water at Ponte Lagosc-uro, only 
.36 foot less than that of 1817; and at the dam of Governolo. near the mouth of 
the Mincio, the river was 1.3 feet lower than a stage of water of 1609, declared 
by Bardazzoli to be marvelous (Lombardini, Notizii). 


i 


38 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


The Cenni Monografici gives the following: 


Pontelagoscuro. 


Years. 

Mean lowest 
water. 

Mean high¬ 
est water. 

Maximum 
high water. 

Minimum 
low water. 

1807-1825 .. 

M. Ft. 
3.28=10.4 
3.26=10.3 
3.19=10.1 

M. Ft. 

7.42=24.3 
7.38=24.2 
7.39=24.2 

M. Ft. 
8.62 = 28.3 
8.96 =29.4 
9.32=30.5 

M. Ft. 
0.38=1.3 
0.72=2.3 
0.62=2.0 

1826-1850... 

1851-1875... 



The above gauge readings, which have been only kept since 1807, show that 
there has been no important rise of the bed of the river (since that could not 
rise without raising the low-water surface) at Pontelagoscuro in the sixty-eight 
years covered; and in connection with Zendrini’s observations, show that there 
has been no probable rise of any importance since 1720, although the raising of 
levees has been going on during this period. Lombardini (Dei Congiamenti del 
Po, 1852, p. 17) examines this question for points above Pontelagoscuro, which 
itself is 92 kilometers (57 miles) from the mouth of the Po. He concludes that 
at Ostiglia, which is 183 kilometers (114 miles) above the mouth, the bed 
appears to have risen a few decimeters (decimeter=3.9 inches) in a century, 
while at Governolo, 15 kilometers (9J miles) above, it appears to have been sta¬ 
tionary for four centuries. 

In II grande estuario Adriatico, 186S, Appendix D. he gives the following table 
of heights of low waters above the lowest water known, which was in May, 1817: 

Means of observed low tcaters, in meters. 


Years. 

Ostiglia. 

Sermide. 

Quatrelle. 

Pontelagos¬ 

curo. 

1817-1850 . 

M. 

0.55 
0.44 

M. 

0.54 
0.77 

M. 

0.47 
0.84 

M. 

0.49 
0.55 

1851-1867 .._. 



Comparing the means from 1817 to 1850 with those from 1851 to 1867, it will 
be seen that a small rise in low-water heights is indicated, but the observations 
at several stations in the first period were few, and hence the results are uncer¬ 
tain. 

The flood heights have, however, steadily risen. The following greatest floods 
are recorded: 

M. Ft. 

1837-1877- 3.22=10.0 in the year 1872 

3757-1790— ^ __2.15= 7.1 in the year 1777 

1797-1830- 2.08= 8.8 in the year 1833 

1837-1877- 3.22=10.6 in the year 1872 

From this table it appears that the highest floods have increased in height 
since 1705 by 1.4 meters (4.0 feet). The rise in flood heights on the Po has not 
been confined to the single point Pontelagoscuro, but has extended far above. 

Gallizia (Giornale del genio civile, February, 1878) examines this question 
and gives the following results. The miles given are reckoned from the mouth 
of the river. 

“At Becca (394 kilometers, or 245 miles), within the century, there is a pro¬ 
gressive rise of 1.53 meters (5 ft.) from 1801 to 1857; at Corossa (337 kilo¬ 
meters, or 209 miles), the flood of 3801 read 6.35 meters, and their heights rose 
gradually to 7.95 meters in 1872, or to 7.45 meters if allowance is made for a 
change of bed at this place. At Casal Maggivre (233 kilometers, or 145 miles), 
from 5.60 meters in 1803, the floods rose gradually to 0.07 meters in 1808, a rise 
of 0.47 meters or 1.5 feet. At Ostiglia (149 kilometers, or 93 miles), from 0.80' 
meters in 1801, and 7.50 meters in 1812 to 8.56 meters, although the river was. 
not entirely confined. At Pontelagoscuro (92 kilometers, or 57 miles), from 
2.19 meters sopra guardia, in 3801, to 3.32 meters in 1872; the river not being 
entirely confined in this last year—a rise of 1.13 meters (3.7 feet) ; so that on 
the average there has certainly been a rise of more than a meter (3.28 feet) in 
the last seventy-five years along the whole course of the leveed river, excluding 
the Parma Cremona front, where the levees are far apart, and the rise is about 
one-half as much.” 


































39 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


gr^Tfl<^ 0 ^wL S "lhi ranHca - P ', 59 i ? ttributes «* increased heights of the 
f* a ? 0(l l ^ u) to tlie more perfect leveeing of the Po and its tribuPirio* 

ihft m f the lateral escape of tlie waters, and sending in a canal to tlie sea 
that which previously flowed over the country ” 

L ?mbardini (Ilgrande estuario Adriatico.' p. 90 ) says the increased flood* 

hinder their spreading out ’ and alsV fr ° m the 

him to e the S le° ^ Ihos^below 

him. to the leveeing of upper parts of rivers and their tributaries and to the 
extension of the river mouth into the sea. uiDutanes, and to the 

t«n° the' lovops ^Tfp* 0 } lle Po ,- “ may be said that during the present cen- 
ti j the levees on tlie Po have been systematized and raised to follow an 

increase in flood height.that in seventy-five years amounted to about three feet 
along the leveed portion of the river; and that there is some evidence of a small 
rise in the extreme low-water surface of the river, which may be caused bv a 
n ^i 0t t^ e ked- It should be noticed, however, that the rise in the bed (if it 
iea e -\ists) amounts to only two-liundredths of a foot a year, and that the 
annual cost of raising levees to keep up with it would be but a small part of the 
annual cost ot a complete system of levees. 

As to the rise in the flood level as the waters are more and more thoroughly 
confined, it may be said that this was a necessary result of confinement; that 
the same thing occurs on the Mississippi, and that it will cease when the levees 
have been built high enough to contain the greatest floods. 

On the Po thus far during the last seventy-five years the effect of the con¬ 
finement ot wateis in raising the flood level has far exceeded any tendency that 
confinement may have had to. reduce flood heights by scouring the bed. 

Senator Washburn. Are the conditions the same in the valley of the Po as 
in the Mississippi Valley? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir; essentially the same; an alluvial stream. 

Cullom. So that your conclusion is that the bed of the river has not 


Senator 
risen? 

General 
inches. 

Senator 
General 
Senator 
Mississippi River? 


Comstock. Not to any considerable amount; not to exceed 6 or 8 

Cullom. For how long a period? 

Comstock. From seventy-five to one hundred years. 

Cullom. Oh, that is the Po. What is the fact with reference to the 


General Comstock. Our records of low water run back only twenty-five or 
thirty years. Our records do not go back far enough to draw an intelligent 
conclusion. You want a period of from seventy-five to one hundred years to say 
positively whether any changes have occurred. 

The Rhine is also a river which, below Diisseldorf, has long been leveed, and 
if levees raise the bed of a river, here they should have produced their full 
effects, as they are rarely broken. 

The following table from Fijnje (Beschonwingen over eenige rivieren, erste 
gedeelte, bijlage A, p. 185) gives (in meters) the height of the lowest water 
which occurred in each ten years from 1772 to 1880, above the Amsterdam zero, 
for Cologne and Emmerich: 


Years. 

Cologne. 

Emmerich. 

1772-1780. 

36.82 

11.29 

1781-1790... 

36.14 

11.26 

1791-1800... 

36.36 

11.24 

1801-1810.. 

36.56 

11.11 

1811-1820. 

36.30 

11.03 

1821-1830.. 

36.30 

10.64 



Years. 

Cologne. 

Emmerich. 

1831-1840.... 

36.30 

10.88 

1841-1850 . 

36. k5 

10.81 

1851-1860___ 

36.06 

10.16 

1861-1870.. 

36.03 

9.92 

1871-1880.. 

36.28 

10.21 


It will be seen that the low-water surface appears to have fallen in the last 
hundred years at Emmerich, and possibly at Cologne. 

Hagen (Wasserstande in den Preussisclien Stromen, p. 12) carefully examines 
the gauge readings at Cologne, from 1846 to 1879, and at Diisseldorf from 1800 
to 1879, to ^detect changes in high and low water heights. Treating the gauge 
reading by the method of least squares, he found the most probable annual 
change in the water heights. At Diisseldorf he found that, with great proba¬ 
bility, there was an annual sinking of the maximum high water in each year 























40 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


amounting to 0.3 inch; that the mean stage did not change, and that the annual 
lowest waters showed, with some probability, an annual rise of one-twelfth of 
an inch. 

For Cologne he found that, with great probability, the high waters had sunk, 
and the lowest waters had risen by about the same amounts as at Diisseldorf. 
A rise of one-twelfth of an inch a year, or 8 inches in a hundred years, is so 
small as not to be an important matter in a system of levees; and if the hun¬ 
dred years of the table above are taken, this rise disappears. 

It has often been asserted that the bed of the Hoang Ho, or Yellow River of 
China, has risen above the surrounding country, where it is leveed. The error, 
originally due to Abbe Hue, has been repeated by English writers on China. 
The following extract from a letter to me by Gen. J. IL. Wilson (a very compe¬ 
tent authority) gives reliable information on the subject: 


Wilmington, Del., May 6, 1890. 

* * * * * * * 


In reply I hasten to say that I crossed the Yellow River on the 7tli of Janu¬ 
ary, 1866, near the city of Kai-fong-fu, in the province of Honan, and visited 
the site of the great break of 1853, about 30 miles below Kai-fong-fu; also 
traversed its embankments or levees on both banks of the river, visiting and 
measuring them at various points between Kai-fong-fu and Chinan-fu in the 
province of Shan-Toong, taking observations, notes, and measurements, and 
having specially in view the repair and maintenance of the embankments, their 
present condition, and the effects produced by them. I had no instruments, 
however, except a hand level, sextant, and tape line, and could therefore make 
no accurate levels across embankments, bed of the stream, fore shores, and 
adjacent plains, but the conclusion I came to in regard to the influence of the 
levees upon the bed of the river was that they had nowhere filled it to a 
higher level than the adjacent country. I had heard of Father Hue’s narrative 
on that point, and I visited the plain at which the river had left its old channel 
in 1853, leading to the sea south of the peninsula of Shan-Toong, and made 
itself an absolutely new one to the Gulf of Pe Chi Li, north of that peninsula. 
Between this place—known on the maps of Asia (Kirke Johnson’s is the best) 
as Lung mum Ku—and Kai-fong-fu, the embankment was very large, but it was 
near the latter place that the great break occurred two years ago. This was 
closed after incredible efforts and great expense, and this river forced to resume 
its old channel, where it is now emptying itself, according to my advices of a 
few months ago, and where it will most probably continue to empty itself till it 
can find a shorter line and steeper declivity to tide level. 

By referring to my little book on China (Appleton & Co.), you will get other 
details. 

In conclusion I do not hesitate to say that I can not believe that Abb6 
Hue was entirely mistaken in regard to the silting up of the channel, and that 
an exhaustive survey would prove beyond a doubt that no such silting as to 
raise any part of the bed above the adjacent country has ever taken place. 

Yours, very truly, 


James H. Wilson. 


The question of the rise of bed of the Mississippi will now be considered. 
Unfortunately it has not been studied as thoroughly as the Rhine and Po, and 
its gauge records go back but a few decades. 

Levee building has gone on most rapidly since 1880, and as the river was very, 
low in December and January, 1S87-88, and again in October and November. 
1889, if there has been any important rise in the river bed resulting therefrom 
it should show itself in a corresponding rise in the extreme low-water surface. 

Several places will be considered, selecting those where our gauge records 
cover as many years as possible. 

(1) Cairo .—The lowest water record extends back to 1859, with breaks, but 
is continuous since 1871. January 1, 1888, the gauge read 1.8 feet, and October 
22, 1889, it read 2.7 feet. From November 10, 1859. to these dates the record 
gives but three years when the water was as low as in 1888 and 1889. These 


years were: 

Feet. 

December 26, 1871; Cairo gauge_—1. 0 

December 6, 1872 ; Cairo gauge.!_ 4 _ 1 . o 

January 1, 1877; Cairo gauge_ 1 . o 


These gauge readings are lower that those of 1888 and 1889, but the period 
since 1880 is entirely too short to conclude that in it there was a year in which 





RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


41 


the discharge reached its lowest value, thus giving extreme low water. The 
greater low-water heights in 18SS and 1889 may be simply due to there being 
more water flowing in the river at those times than in 1871. If in seventeen 
years following 1888 there are no gauge readings as low as those of 1871, 1872, 
and 1877, it will in some degree indicate but not prove that the bed has risen. 
At present the data do not extend over a period long enough to draw any reliable 
conclusions. 

(2) Memphis .—This gauge read: 


Feet. 

November 20, 1887_ 1. 20 

January 4, 1888_ 0. 80 

October 26, 1889_ 1. 90 


The records of low water before these dates extend back to 1848 and are 
continuous back to 1871. The records back to 1848 give but three dates when 
the water was lower than on January 4, 1888, namely 0.80 feet. These dates 
are: 


December 29, 1871_ —0. 92 

December 25, 1S72_ —0. 95 

January 2, 1877_ _|_0. 75 


Here again the extremely low waters of 1S71 and 1S72 show themselves, and 
they are lower than any since 1880. But, as was said in reference to Cairo, 
the period since 1S80 is entirely too short to enable us to assume that in it there 
has been a year of minimum flow, or, what amounts to the same thing, that 
there will not in a few years occur a stage as low as that of December 29, 1871. 

(3) Helena .—The low-water record is continuous, excepting 1878 and 1879, 
back to 1871. The gauge read: 


Feet. 

December 29, 1871_ 1.15 

December 26, 1872--- 0. 00 


The record afterwards gives no waters as low as these till 1887. The 


gauge read: 

Feet. 

November 20, 1887_ 1- 20 

January 4, 1888_ 0. 80 


Comparison of the two periods gives a difference too small to establish a rise 
of low-water level. 

(4) Lake Providence .—The low-water record extends back to 1872 and the 


lowest waters are: 

Feet. 

December 29, 1872-—3. 85 

October 16, 1879_ 0.55 


Since 1880 the two lowest waters are: 

Feet. 

November 22, 1887-- 1- 52 

October 31, 1889--- 2. 80 

There seems to have been a great depression of low water in this part of 
the river about 1872. The Terrapin Neck cut-off, shortening the river about 
16 miles, occurred in 1866 and may have been a partial cause. The gauge read¬ 
ings given indicate a rise in the water surface and probably of the bed at Lake 
Providence since 1872. 

(.5) Vicksburg .—Excepting 1878 and 1879. the low-water record is contin¬ 
uous back to 1872. The gauge read: 

Feet. 

December 30, 1872- 


From this date to 1886 the lowest record is: 

Feet. 

January 6, 1S87- -• -5 


Since 1880 we have: 

November 16, 1886- 

November 24, 1887— 

January 7, 1888- 

October 29, 1889- 


Feet. 
0. 00 
3. 91 
1. 32 
0. 80 






















42 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


i 


Here tlie gauge records indicate a fall in the low-water surface and perhaps a 
fall in the bed. The question is complicated by the Terrapin Neck cut-off of 
186G. the Vicksburg cut-off of 1876, and the Davis Island cut-off of 18G7. 

From 1872 to 1881 the low-water fall in the surface of the river between 
Lake Providence and Vicksburg varied between 21.0 feet and 22.9 feet; in 1883 
it was 24.9; in 188G, 26.2; in 1887, 29.0; in 1888, 2G.7, and in 1889, 27.2 feet. 
The change of fall from 22.6 feet in 1887 to 29.0 feet in 1887, amounting to G.4 
feet, is very great. About two-thirds appear to be due to a sinking of the low- 
water plane at Vicksburg, and the rest to a rise in the low-water plane at Lake 
Providence. The low-water slope from Lake Providence to Vicksburg was in 
1884 still much greater than just above or below. Its great value was prob¬ 
ably due to the cut-offs. In 1884 the distance from Lake Providence to Vicks¬ 
burg was 57 miles; the sum of the two cut-offs was 18 miles. If we suppose 
that before these two cut-offs the river was two-thirds of this 18 miles longer 
than now, or the distance from Lake Providence to Vicksburg to have been 
69 miles, the slope would have been but fifty-seven sixty-ninths of its present 
value. The result of the cut-offs would be to increase the velocity of the river 
above and near them. This increase of velocity would tend to scour the bed 
and banks, perhaps making a deposit in the river below the Davis cut-off, and 
temporarily raising the bed there; and it may be that it is now returning to its 
normal low-water position by removing the deposits .below. 

(6) Red River Landing .—The low-water record is continuous back to 1872, 
which was the year of the lowest known low water, the gauge reading 0.0. In 
1879 it fell as low as 0.55, and in 1887 to 0.47. The difference in low-water 
heights of 1872 and 1887 is too small to be evidence of a rise in the bed of the 
river. 

Thus far only low waters of the Mississippi have been considered. The high- 
water records cover longer periods, but as an increased high water may result 
from confining the floods between lines, as well as from a rise of the bed of the 
river, it can not be concluded from a rise of flood height in the river that the bed 


has also risen. At Cairo— 

Feet. 

June 21, 1858, the gauge read_49. 6 

May 2, 1862_50.8 

March 21, 1867_51.0 

The river did not again reach these heights till— 

February 26, 1882_'_51. 87 

February 27, 1883__52.17 


This increase in the later heights is not supposed to indicate any rise of bed, 
but can be accounted for solely by a greater flood discharge. 

At Memphis the record goes back to 1828. In 1862 the river reached a flood 
height of 34.45, the record then showing no greater one. In 1882 the greatest 
height was 35.15 ; in 1887, 35.30 ; and in 1890, 35.60. This rise of 1.1 feet since 
1862 may be accounted for by a greater discharge, by the construction of levees 
below Memphis, and, perhaps by the influence of railroads across the St. Francis 
bottom, without the supposition of a rise of bed. 

At Vicksburg the record goes back to 1828. The highest known water was 
51.1 feet, in 1862. The next highest was 49.1, March 15, 1890. Here there is no 
indication of a rise of bed. 

At Natchez the record goes back to 1802. The highest water was 49.9, in 1862. 
In 1890 the highest water was 48.6 on March 22. In 1815 the highest water was 
48.5. There is no indication of a rise of bed. 

From an examination of the Po and Rhine, it may be concluded that if their 
beds rise in the leveed portions (which is not entirely certain from the data), it 
is at so slow a rate as not to be an important factor in the maintenance of a 
levee system. With levees 10 feet high, if the bed rose at the rate of 1 foot in a 
hundred years, the cost of raising a line of levees having the length of the pres¬ 
ent Mississippi system—about 1,300 miles—by this 1 foot, would be but about 
$4,000,000, distributed over the country, or $40,000 per annum, which is a small 
part of the annual cost of the system. 

On the Mississippi, the records, while not extending over a period long enough 
to give final results, do not, so far as they go, indicate that the bed has risen. 

The opinion so often held, that levees cause a river bed to rise, is probably due 
to the fact that the bed of a river does sometimes rise, although leveed" arid 
hence it is concluded that the levees cause the rise. Any sedimentary stream, 
having a definite succession ^of stages and discharges, and flowing in its own 








RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 43 


alluvion, finally takes such a slope as will give a velocity sufficient to enable it to 
carry its sediment, whether derived from above or from it own banks and bed 
farther down stream, without, on the whole, scouring or filling its bed. An 
average velocity less than this will give rise to deposits in its bed, or if it is 
crooked, it will become straight, thus in either case increasing its slope and 
velocity toward their normal values. An average velocity greater than this will 
scour its bed or cause caving in its convex bends, thus increasing its length and 
diminishing its slope and velocity to such values as its bed can bear without, on 
the whole, scouring or filling. When, therefore, the slope of a sedimentary 
stream suddenly diminishes from that which it needs for a stable regimen, its 
velocity also diminishes; it drops a part of its alluvion, and its bed rises. Thus,, 
when the Mississippi enters the Gulf of Mexico, its slope suddenly diminishes,, 
its velocity diminishes, and it builds up bars out in deep water. So Bavou 
Lafourche, when its waters fall to the level of swamps but a few feet above Gulf 
level, builds up its bed, necessitating high levees. So, too,” the Adige, where it 
reaches the low plains of the Po, needs for permanence a steeper slope than the 
country has, and raises its bed above it. In all these cases the bed would rise 
without levees. 

There is one more cause for the rise of bed of a sedimentary river, which,, 
however, acts at a very slow rate. The Mississippi pushes its mouths out into 
the Gulf at the rate of about 4 miles in a century, and this increases in length 
requires a corresponding increase in fall of water surface to make the waters 
flow out. An increase of 4 miles in length would, with existing slopes, raise the 
high-water surface at New Orleans about 0.7 foot. The cost of raising levees to 
correspond with this rise per century in the water surface would, as has already 
been seen, be a small part of the annual cost of the system. 

It has often been asserted that the bed of the Hoang Ho, or Yellow River, of 
China, has risen above the surrounding country where it is leveed, and is caus¬ 
ing trouble. I wrote to General Wilson in reference to that, and he told me 
some time ago about it, and he assures me that he examined that river with ref¬ 
erence to levees at a number of points: that the test he made was by using a 
hand level, tape lines, and sextant, and in his opinion at no place is the bed of 
the Hoang Ho River as high as the surrounding country. 

Senator Washburn. He thinks that the bed has not risen since the levees 
have been built. 

General Comstock. The levees have been there for hundreds of years, but the 
bed of the river has at no place risen to a higher level than the surrounding 
country. 

The Chairman. The levees on that river are very high. 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. The Chinese minister wrote to some gentleman the other day 
that they were as high as the dwellings. 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. He speaks of the break that happened a few 
years ago, and he says it was of an enormous extent. Now, with reference to 
the Mississippi River at Cairo, it was minus 1 foot in 1871, which was the lowest 
ever known. In January, 1888, it went down 1.8 feet, so that in 1871 it was 
about 2.8 feet lower than it was in 1888. That may indicate some slight rise in 
the bed of the river, there, but it is equally possible that it was due to the fact 
that in 1888 the river was larger than it was in 1881—that is, the river flow was 
larger. 

Of course the height of this low-water surface depends upon the volume of 
water that runs through it. Sometimes the river builds bars across itself which 
makes the water rise higher. I do not think we have any evidence to show that 
the river has risen at Cairo, but if you find that the lowest water in 1888 is 2.8 
feet higher than it was in 1871, which covers a period of seventeen years, then 
if in seventeen years more it does not fall as low as in 1871, there will be some 
evidence that the river bed has risen. 

At Memphis that same year the low water produced a somewhat similar 
result. In January, 1888, the river was eight-tenths of a foot on the guage. In 
1871 it was minus ninety-two hundredths ; that is the difference of 1.7 feet. 
These same remarks might be applied as well to the other. So far as figures 
go it indicates a slight rise there. From Cairo down to Memphis there have 
been no levees. 

At Vicksburg—the lowest water in 1872—the guage was minus 1.3 feet. 
November 24, 1887, it was minus 3.91 .feet—that is to say, the lowest water 
there was 2.6 lower at Vickburg in 1882 than it was in 1871. It is due to the 
cut-offs which occurred there in 1876, 1866, and 1867. 


44 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Senator Cullom. If it meant anything more than local causes it would reduce 
the bed of the river below, and there you have levees. 

General Comstock. Yes, sir; and it has got down 2.6 feet. 

At Red River the low-water record is continuous back to 1872. In 1872 it fell 
to zero and in 1887 to forty-seven hundredths, so that the river in 1887 was only 
four-tenths higher than it was in 1872. So that it can he safely said, so far as 
our records go, and that is the most reliable information existing, there is no 
certain rise in the bed of the Mississippi at any point, even at Cairo. I am not 
sure but that that may be due to difference of discharge. The river has not 
been completely leveed there. 

Senator Cullom. Would leveeing below have any effect upon the river at 
Cairo? 

General Comstock. Nothing to speak of. It is only continuous when you get 
down to Arkansas City, which is 438 miles below Cairo. 

The Chairman. It is stated in some of these papers that the Eads jetties for 
narrowing the river there have reduced the stream and have raised the bottom 
of the river above it. What have you to say as to that? 

General Comstock. I would attach no value whatever to such a statement as 
that, unless the figures were given to me, and I should not believe it even then. 

Senator Cullom. Do you mean the figures of the cause? 

General Comstock. I mean the figures—that is to say, if you put any obstruc¬ 
tion in the river you would raise the water above it in some small degree. I do 
not suppose it is possible that these jetties have raised the river at New Or¬ 
leans Jby 2 inches. 

Senator Washburn. We had Captain Leathers before the committee the other 
day, and I asked him this question: 

“As I understand the theory of the Mississippi River Commission, the theory 
upon which appropriations have been made, it has been that of contracting the 
river, contracting the current so as to wash out and lower the bed of the river, 
and in consequence give a greater depth of navigable water? 

“ Senator Gibson. The theory. Senator, is this: Not to contract it beyond its 
natural limits, but to keep it within its natural banks. 

“ Senator Washburn. From your experience is that the effect it has had, to 
lower the bed of the river, or has the bed of the river been raised? 

“ Mr. Leathers. As you have contracted you have filled the bottom, and 
you have elevated the surface. I think that the work which has been 
done by the Commission has been a disastrous thing to the people in the 
valley. I have seen no improvement there whatever towards that. We have 
got for navigable purposes three or four feet more water going to sea than we 
ever had, but it has been at the expense of the planters in the valley, putting 
five or six feet of water on them.” 

Now, the statement, as the chairman has just remarked, has been made here 
repeatedly that the result of these levees had been to raise the bottom of the 
river from 6 to 7 feet. You state that that is not the fact, do you? 

General Comstock. It is not the fact. 

Senator Washburn. As a matter of fact it has not been raised at all? 

General Comstock. I do think it has. I have not formed any certain conclu¬ 
sion that it has been raised at all. As to the rise in high-water surface I have 
no doubt that the perfecting of the levees has raised the water. 

The Chairman. To what expense have you gone to in building the levees? 

General Comstock. About three millions of dollars. 

The Chairman. With reference to navigation alone? 

General Comstock. That is the way the Commission has construed the law. 
The law provides that it shall not be spent on levees except as a part of the plan 
to improve navigation, etc. 

The Chairman. What would be the effect of leveeing the Mississippi River 
from top to bottom? 

General Comstock. In what respect? 

The Chairman. As to navigation. 

General Comstock. I do not think it would improve it sufficiently to make 
that in any degree an economical method of improving the river. 

The Chairman. You resort to other methods. 

General Comstock. I would resort to the other method. 

Senator Cullom. Which other method? 

General Comstock. Works in the bed of the river—spurs, dikes, and revet¬ 
ments. 

The Chairman. Then you would have to build levees? 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


45 


General Comstock. Not necessarily. 

The Chairman. You would not build levees? 

General Comstock. Under the law, as it is now I should not build levees, 
accoiding to my idea of the effects of levees. Of course, I am a minority of the 
Commission. The majority of the Commission think the river can be im¬ 
proved by building levees. My own individual opinion is that levees are too 
expensive a way of improving the river to justify it under the law, and I am 
not sure that they would improve it at all. 

Senator Washburn. In some places the only improvement would be in levees. 
For instance, at Plum Point and Lake Providence Reach. 

General Comstock. Our improvements are at Lake Providence Reach, but the 
main works are in the river and are not levees. 

Senator Cullom. You do not believe in the levee system, as a matter of fact? 

General Comstock. I believe in it implicitly. I think it is necessary to build 
them in order to take care of the country. I do not think the United States 
should put them there at their own expense, for navigation purposes. 

Senator Cullom. But for the general good of the country, its development, 
etc., you believe in levees? 

General Comstock. Of course I do. It always seemed to me that the 
Italian way was a fair one. On the important rivers they have adopted the 
principle that the people interested should pay the bills, and so the State 
assumes the cost to the extent of one-half and the Province assumes the cost of 
one-quarter, by taxation. Besides that they have associations of men called 
Consorzii, and these Consorzii pay the other one-fourth. So that the State 
pays one-half of the whole amount. On the Mississippi River, as the thing 
actually works, the State and local authorities have been paying two-thirds 
since 1880 and the United States one-third. There have been $10,000,000 
spent on the river since 1880, and of that amount the United States paid one- 
third. 

Senator Washburn. Suppose the Government should appropriate the money 
to build levees the entire length of the river beyond Cairo, of a width, I think 
you agreed on 3,600 feet. That is the general width to which you would con¬ 
tract the river. 

General Comstock. In my judgment the farther apart the levees the better. 

Senator Washburn. In many places the width is 3,600 feet. 

General Comstock. That is low water. 

Senator Washburn. Assuming that that was done, are not there periods of 
time in the year when that length would not be sufficient to hold the water 
within the banks of the river? 

General Comstock. It depends upon how high you build the levees. 

Senator Washburn. At any reasonable height? 

General Comstock. I think they are building them from 10 to 13 feet. 

Senator Washburn. What was the occasion of the breaks this spring below 
Red River? 

General Comstock. This flood in the upper river, at Helena, for instance, 
appears to have been somewhat less than the flood of 1882. At Red River, from 
the information that Captain Kingman gives me this morning, it would seem 
to be nearly equal to the flood of 1882. In 1882 about 600,000 cubic feet a second 
went from the Red River into the head of the Atchafalaya basin and escaped 
into the Mississippi. Levees were built across the head of that basin subse¬ 
quently, and if they stood of course they were going to force this 600,000 feet, 
less what was allowed to go down the Atchafalaya proper, down past New 
Orleans. The effect of keeping those levees intact is to throw a greater strain 
on the levees directly below Red River. 

I have not the definite data now at hand, and of course my opinion is not 
final, but I think these levees on the Atchafalaya broke sooner than on the Mis¬ 
sissippi below Red River. I believe the levees at the head of Atchafalaya 
should let 600,000 cubic feet of water escape down there. In addition to that, I 
would raise the levees below Red River. 

Senator Washburn. Your answer to my question, then, would be that the 
river, if it were levied the whole distance, would not carry the entire volume of 
water. 

General Comstock. Oh, yes. 

Senator Washburn. But you would relieve it by opening up the Atchafalaya? 

General Comstock. That would be the way. 

The Chairman. If there were money enough there would be no difficulty in 
putting them at a height that would raise the river? 


46 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


General Comstock. I think not. 

The Chairman. Have you compared the overflows on the Mississippi River 
during the last fifteen or twenty years with this last one? 

General Comstock. Our data of the overflows are very meager, except with 
reference to the flood of 1882, which was a great one. All the data are not in. 
I have not received them as yet in reference to this present flood. As I said 
before, at Helena the maximum flow appears to two hundred or three hundred 
thousand cubic feet a second less than in 1882. At Red River it was about equal 
to that of 1882. Both of these were great flood years. 

The Chairman. Do you know how the country inundated appeared in 1882 as 
compared with that country this year? 

General Comstock. There was no comparison whatever. At that time the 
levees were broken from Cairo down to Bonnet Carre. The country was over¬ 
flowed from Cairo to the Gulf, and the damage was greatly less in 1890 than it 
was in 1882. 

Senator Cullom. Now, for navigation purposes, have you any idea what 
amount of money would be necessary to be spent to make that river as good as it 
uan be made? 

General Comstock. I have estimated it in the neighborhood of $75,000,000. 

Senator Cullom. For navigation purposes purely? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Cullom. Without reference to river interests? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Cullom. How much would it cost to levee it? 

General Comstock. There has been no estimate made of that at all. 

The Chairman. Suppose you built the levees at the same time, what would 
it cost? 

General Comstock. So far as getting ten feet of water, it might take off 

$ 10 , 000 , 000 . 

The Chairman. It would take off $10,000,000. 

General Comstock. The works on the bed of the river might cost $10,000,000 
less if you made a perfect system of levees. 

The Chairman. How much does the perfect system of levees add? 

General Comstock. There has been no estimate made of it. The Commission 
made an estimate in 1884 and 1885, I think, of levees at a certain height, at 
$11,000,000. I think that is too small for a perfect system of levees. 

Senator Washburn. You say to build levees would diminish the amount 
already mentioned in improving the level of the river. 

General Comstock. As I said before, I do not know whether levees would 
improve navigation. I said that the building of levees might make the naviga¬ 
tion improvement cost ten million dollars less, or sixty-five millions of dollars, 
but I have no certainty that it would. 

Senator Cullom. Have you gone over the system that you would adopt if you 
had your'own way with reference to the improvement of the river for naviga¬ 
tion purposes? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir 

Senator Washburn. That is by making improvements in the bed of the river 
and not by building levees? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. The building of the levees the entire distance would not 
obviate the necessity of making these improvements in the bed of the river that 
you are now doing? 

General Comstock. I think not. 

Senator Washburn. Now, the effect of relieving the river at the Atchafalaya 
has been good, as I understand you. 

General Comstock. The effect of what? 

Senator Washburn. The effect on the Atchafalaya outlet by relieving the Mis¬ 
sissippi of, say, one-fourth of the discharge, the result has been good, has it not? 

General Comstock. No, I can hardly say that the result has been good, because 
the levees broke in 1882. When that was entirely open the levees broke. 

Senator Washburn. You would relieve the river of so much water? 

General Comstock. Yes. sir; but the amount that should be raised would be 
small in comparison with what would be necessary to bring the water down 
the main river. 

Senator Washburn. Would you recommend the closing entirely of the 
Atchafalaya outlet, assuming that you had money enough to build the levees 
high enough below? 



I 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 47 

General Comstock. No, 1 do not think it would. It depends upon the country 
back there. 

Senator Gibson. As I understand it. the Ateliafalaya is not, strictly speaking, 
an outlet of the Mississippi. It is both an outlet and an inlet. At certain times 
when the Tensas Valley basin is full of water, and the Red River is full, it is 
an inlet into the Mississippi River; it empties into it. I suppose it is doing that 
now, and during the Hood season it has been a tributary of the Mississippi 
River—I mean the Red River has. But the function that the Ateliafalaya per¬ 
forms is to take off water that otherwise would go into the river. 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. From the Tensas Basin and from the Red River. 

General Comstock. All of that would become part of the Mississippi River 
below it. 

Senator Gibson. Assuming that that is the case, why would not the opening 
of the Lake Borgne outlet have the same effect by relieving the river by 
discharge? 

General Comstock. If you were to make an opening of the same size, the first 
Question would be how low down you would have that opening. 

Senator Gibson. No ; what you would call a high-water opening? 

General Comstock. That is about the level of the banks. For that purpose it 
would give some relief. But at Lake Borgne the rise and fall of the river is only 
something like 12 feet perhaps, so that if you stop your sills at 9 or 10 feet above 
low water it would require one a good many miles long, which would require 
expensive work. 

Senator Gibson. How deep an outlet could you have there without interfering 
with the river below; not to shoal up the river and. affect the navigation below? 

General Comstock. It is possible you might take 100,000 feet a second. The 
How has been about 1,100,000 feet a second. This year it has been more. You 
might take 100,000 without injuring the South Pass. I do not think you would 
gain enough by that experiment to balance the danger you run. 

Senator Gibson. IIow far is it from the point on the Mississippi River where 
it is proposed to make the Lake Borgne outlet to deep water? 

General Comstock. I do not recollect the distance exactly. I think it is some¬ 
thing like 60 or 70 miles. From Lake Borgne to the Mississippi Sound the water 
is from 10 or 12 feet to 20 feet deep, while the main river at Lake Borgne down 
to the head of the pass is probably 100 feet deep. 

Senator Gibson. How far is it from Lake Borgne to deep water? 

General Comstock. About 100 miles to the jetties. 

Senator Gibson. What would be the damage likely to be inflicted upon the 
city of New Orleans and upon the people in that vicinity by making an outlet 
into Lake Borgne? 

General Comstock. It would raise the water there by a number of feet. 

Senator Gibson. Would not that necessitate the leveeing in of the whole rear 
of the city of New Orleans? 

General Comstock. I think so. The dams would be overflowed and raise the 
water in Lake Borgne. 

Senator Gibson. You have spoken of the River Rhine and the River Po. Is 
not there a great deal of gravel in the River Rhine, and more gravel in the River 
Rhnie than in the Mississippi River in proportion to size and the volume of 
water? 

General Comstock. When you get down towards the boundary of Holland I 
think there is not much besides sand. As you go up it is possible that there is a 
little gravel there, as there is in the Mississippi River down as far as Profit 
Island. 

Senator Gibson. Have they not taken in vast tracts of country on the Rhine 
by sharpening the river? 

General Comstock. There has been a good deal of cut-off work done above 
the region of levees on the Baden frontier. 

Senator Gibson. If you were to construct this outlet at Lake Borgne, how far 
would you think it necessary to levee that outlet to prevent it from overflowing 
the whole country? 

General Comstock. You would have to levee it all around; I think all the 
way around Lake Borgne. 

Senator Gibsox. How would you levee it through Lake Borgne? 

General Comstock. I consider that so foolish that I have not given it a 
thought. 


48 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL, 


Senator Gibson. Would not the secondary effect of this outlet be to fill up 
that basin with sediment? 

General Comstock. The velocity in Late Borgne would at first be one-sixth 
of that which it is in the main river, and of course a large portion of the Mis¬ 
sissippi sediment would drop into Lake Borgne. 

Senator Gibson. You have been down to the forts there, have you not? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Do you know a place called Cubitt’s Gap? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Was not that originally an outlet to the deep water of the 
Gulf, right above the Gulf, on the right-hand side? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir; on the left bank. 

Senator Gibson. It is on the right-hand side going down the river. 

General Comstock. That is the Jump. 

Senator Gibson. What has been the effect of building these outlets? 

General Comstock. The effect has been to build a bar. 

Senator Gibson. Has not the river really closed them up? 

General Comstock. I think they are very much closed up. I have not seen a 
survey of them for many years. 

Senator Washburn. What is the distance from the Lake Borgne outlet where 
you would start off from the Mississippi River to the deep water of the Gulf; 
what would be the distance across there? 

General Comstock. My recollection is it is sometihng like 60 or 70 miles. 

Senator Washburn. What is the distance from that same point to an outlet 
at the jetties? 

General Comstock. About 110 miles. 

Senator Washburn. Then the current would be very much more rapid through 
the Lake Borgne outlet than it is in the Mississippi? 

General Comstock. No, sir. 

Senator Washburn. The fall would be much greater. 

General Comstock. The fall would be greater in the ratio of sixty to one 
hundred, but the velocity would not depend upon the fall alone. It depends 
just as much on the depth. You would nearly double the slope of the river, but 
the depth would be only one-tenth as much. The main river is 100 feet deep, 
and you would have to dig it out nearly to that depth to get as high velocity all 
the way to the sound as in the Mississippi. 

Senator Washburn. The result would be in the first instance to fill up Lake 
Borgne and to cut a main channel in there, so that the objections raised by the 
citizens of Louisiana would not come about. 

General Comstock. I think that would be the result ultimately. Lake 
Borgne now is a very wide body of water. 

Senator Washburn. Not very deep. 

General Comstock. No, but still its cross section is larger than that of the 
Mississippi, so that the velocity of the water flowing through it would be very 
much less than the Mississippi River. The process would be to shoal it up 
and form channels through it, and the velocity would be less. 

Senator Washburn. There would ultimately be a distinct channel through it? 

General Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. You said a while ago that it would cost about $75,000,000 to 
complete the works on the Mississippi River. Have you ever made any estimate 
of what the cost would be of completing the works on the Atlantic sea-board, 
the improvement of the rivers and harbors? 

General Comstock. No, sir 

Senator Gibson. Or on the lakes? 

General Comstock. No, sir 

Senator Gibson. You said, also, that it would cost $10,000,000 less than 
$75,000,000 if we applied the levee system in conjunction with the jetty system. 

General Comstock. I mentioned that as possible to my mind. I really do not 
know. 

Senator Gibson. What benefit would it confer upon the people living on the 
banks of the river to have it leveed? 

General Comstock. The benefit would be enormous. 

Senator Gibson. What area of territory would it bring into habitation? 

General Comstock. Some 30,000 square miles, if the whole of it were culti¬ 
vated. 

Senator Gibson. What effect would it have on the common carriers, the rail¬ 
road systems? 



RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


49 


General Comstock. A very large effect. The effect of the levees on the Yazoo 
River has been very large during the last few years, both in the way of river 
transportation and railroads. 

Senator Cullom. You say there are levees now above the level of the valley 
along the river? 

General Comstock. They are not very much more than 3 or 4 feet high in 
some places. 

Senator Cullom. How much of that country would be so endangered as to 
drive the people away and destroy the crops, stock, etc.? 

General Comstock. That would depend very much upon whether the levee 
broke and discharged the water over it. Take the Yazoo district. There is a 
number of drainage streams running through it into which the water flows from 
the Mississippi, and they have built up ridges along their banks just as the Mis¬ 
sissippi has, and when the flood comes the water is guided by those ridges and 
flows into the bottom. It is almost impossible to tell what damage is going to 
be done in a given place by a given break, except by one thoroughly familiar 
with the local topography. 

Senator Cullom. Can not people, property, stock, etc., be gotten onto high 
spots around there, so that they can secure themselves from danger? 

General Comstock. Very often the levees are the only high spots. 

* Senator Washburn. Is the topography of the country such that there is any 
point above the Atchafalaya where an outlet could be made and the water reach 
the Gulf? 

General Comstock. I think not of any value at all. Mr. Cowdon has proposed 
an outlet into Bayou Bartholomew from the Arkansas River, which scheme I 
think is not good. 

Senator Washburn. Why so? 

General Comstock. It is rather a small narrow stream there. Suppose you 
take 100,000 feet of water out of the Arkansas River, I doubt if you could get 
it to run through that stream. I am not sure you could make a canal from the 
Arkansas River through to Bartholomew to carry even that amount except at 
enormous expense. 

Senator Washburn. During the past two or three years the levees have been 
closed. How has the low-water navigation been affected? 

General Comstock. Affected by State works or by the works of the Com¬ 
mission? 

Senator Washburn. It has been affected by levees and not by jetty works, I 
understand; but where the river has been leveed, has the low-water navigation 
been improved by those levees? 

General Comstock. That is a question which is something like asking about 
the rise in the bed of the river. You want a good many years to settle that 
question. The results to be effected would be the disappearance of the bars 
having less than 10 feet. I looked at that question some time ago with refer¬ 
ence to the low waters of 1887, 1888, and 1889, which were quite low-water years, 
and nearly as low as 1S71 and 1872. There were a good many bars that showed 
themselves in those years. Our record is not definite and precise enough to say 
that the bars have diminished. I do not know that except by the disappearance 
of the bars or by resurvey of the whole river. It can be shown that levees have 
improved the bars which .give trouble to navigation. 

With reference to the rise in the river bed, Colonel Ernst has given me some 
averages for a period of years. There are a number of points, taking the mean 
low water, that indicate that the low water has not risen. 

Mr. Cowdon. It has been stated that the Jump showed itself up to 4 feet at 
its intersection with the Mississippi River, and that was given as evidence why 
the Lake Borgne outlet was closed. I want some gentleman to look at this 
chart and see if that is correct. Some Senator get up and look at this map. 

General Comstock. I doubt if I gave that testimony as to being only 4 feet. 
I will say speaking from recollection, that while the jetties were being built I 
went in there one day and was told it was filling up rapidly, and that there was 
great difficulty in getting a steamboat about in there. 

Senator Washburn. How late in edition is this map? 

Mr. Cowdon. The first date was in 1872, and it was revised in 1884 and 1885. 

General Comstock. I would say that it is difficult to tell on that map when 
the survey was made. 

Mr. Cowdon. The map was made two years after the survey was made. 


R and h app —05-4 



50 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


General Comstock. It was made in 1887, but the survey may have been made 
ten years before. It is a Government map. 

Mr. Cowdon. That report was made in 1880. I went there and got the proofs. 
1 measured it and found 56 feet of water. 

General Comstock. How far did you go down? 

Mr. Cowdon. I went down about three-quarters of a mile. 

STATEMENT OF LIEUT. COL. CHARLES R. SUTER. 

Lieut. Col. Charles R. Suter, U. S. A., a member of the Mississippi River 
Commission, appeared before the committee. 

The Chairman. How long have you been connected with the Mississippi 
River? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. About twenty-four years. 

Senator Cullom. Are you a civilian? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. No, sir ; I am an officer of the Engineer Corps, 
U. S. Army. 

The Chairman. Just make a general statement as General Comstock did in 
relation to the Mississippi River, its improvement, etc. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I presume you refer more porticularly to the work 
of the Mississippi River Commission. 

The Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. The Commission was organized in 1879. The first 
report that the Commission submitted in accordance with the law organizing it 
considered various plans that had been presented at various times for im](rov¬ 
ing the Mississippi River. They were defined in the bill as the outlet plan, the 
levee plan, and what was called the jetty plan. The Commission reported upon 
all three plans and then made their recommendation as to what they proposed. 

The so-called outlet plan was condemned in toto. The plan of improving the 
navigation by levees alone was not adopted by the Commission. 

Of course, as a protection against overflow they were unanimously favored by 
the Commission. The closure of the then existing gaps was recommended, as it 
was considered that the levee system would form an important auxiliary in 
channel improvement when taken in connection with the other work which 
was recommended. The Commission were of the opinion that an approxi¬ 
mately uniform regimen of the river should be aimed at, and that the control 
over the river should extend through all its stages, including high water, which 
of course brings in the levees as a factor in the channel improvement. I will 
state that when I speak of a uniform regimen of the river I mean that the 
object is to introduce as nearly as possible similar conditions throughout, so 
that there will be no abrupt changes in its main features. 

The river in its present state varies from 2,000 feet to over 10,000 feet in 
width, with corresponding variations in velocity and everything connected with 
it. The idea was to bring it into something like uniformity. Of course, it was 
not considered advisable that the minimum width should be taken as the 
standard. The minimum width I think is 2,000 feet. It is not considered neces¬ 
sary to go that' far, but the Commission found on investigation, from such sur¬ 
veys as were available, that a width at low water of about 3,000 feet would 
give sufficient depth for all navigable purposes, and the plan formulated was to 
reduce the river to this width at low water by proper contraction works. The 
kind of contraction works proposed were what may be denominated silt-catch¬ 
ing works. They consist of systems or combinations of dikes made of piles and 
carrying brush screens, so designed as to check the current over certain selected 
portions of the river bed and induce there deposits of silt, so that ultimately 
the river may rectify itself by reclaiming those portions of the bed which are 
not needed for the navigable channel and building up new banks. Eventually 
these shoals become the training dikes just as ordinary dikes do on rivers of 
the usual character. It is a system of improvement only possible on a sediment¬ 
bearing stream. 

The second feature of the proposed plan was the revetment of banks where 
exposed to erosion, the idea of course being to make the current act on the bot¬ 
tom instead of the banks, in order to deepen the channel. 

These two constitute the main elements of the channel improvement in the 
bed of the river; that is, permeable dikes to induce deposits, and revetments 
to hold the banks and keep the river in place. The maintenance of levees on 
the top of the banks was thought by the Commission to subserve two purposes. 
In some places there is very little question that the navigation of the river 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


51 


has been serously deteriorated by the existence of breaks in the levee. That, 
of coursb, is especially manifest in those portions of the river that have been 
leveed for a long time; that is, where the system of levees has been kept up for 
a great many years. 

It has been found by measurement that below extensive gaps in levees there 
is a very decided deterioration in the channel, and the Commission were of the 
opinion that this deterioration is due to the existence of these gaps; hence their 
inference was that if those gaps in the levees were closed the deposits formed 
under the influence of the crevasses would be swept away and the channel of 
the river correspondingly improved and deepened. Furthermore, levees were 
deemed essential, both for the safety of the works in the bed of the river, and to 
maintain the regiment at those places where it was already good. The only 
way to obtain uniformity of regimen, or to keep it when obtained, is to control 
the entire discharge of the river, which of course means the control of the 
floods as well as low stages. At the period of flood discharge you have an enor¬ 
mous volume of water, capable of almost any amount of mischief; at that period 
the cut-offs are formed and all sorts of accidents of that kind occur, all of 
which tend to upset the uniform regimen you are endeavoring to get. 

From this point of view the function of the levee system may be considered as 
conservative: its other function confers a direct benefit. The plan of the Com¬ 
mission contemplated both of these functions and these three factors; that is, 
the channel contraction works, the revetment of the banks, and the levees on 
the top of the banks constitute the plan on which the Commission has worked 
from that day to this. 

The Chairman. If you were regarding the navigation of the Mississippi River 
alone, and forgetting for the time being the landowners up and down the Mis¬ 
sissippi River, would you adopt the levee system in conjunction with the sys¬ 
tem which you did adopt at certain reaches there in order to make the river 
navigable? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Would you take both of them? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Then you differ from General Comstock in that respect? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. What have you to say in relation to the assertion that the 
bottom of the river has been rising? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I do not think there is the slightest evidence of it. 

Senator Gibson. You have stated the plan adopted by the Commission? Will 
you now state the results achieved by the execution of that plan? 

The Chairman. General Comstock has stated that fully. 

Senator Girson. General Comstock has been practically in charge of it? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. Have the plans you have carried out fully met your 
expectation? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. They have; they have certainly met mine. 

The Chairman. Your judgment is -now that you would continue the same 
process you have been going through with since you have been on the Commis¬ 
sion, in order to improve the navigation of the river? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Captain Leathers has been on the Mississippi River since 
1836, and he says that the navigation of the river is not so easy to-day as it was 
in 1836. when he first went on. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I do not know anything about 1836. That is rather 
before my time. 

The Chairman. Has there been any improvement in the navigation of the 
Mississippi since you have been on it? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. There certainly has been where the Commission 
has been at work. That is the only thing upon which I can give you any defi¬ 
nite evidence. I know that at Plum Point and Lake Providence, which are the 
only places where the Commission has done work of any consequence, the low- 
water depth has been more than doubled. 

The Chairman. Those two reaches? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir; over those portions of them where the 
work has been carried on. 

The Chairman. What is your opinion of this Lake Borgue outlet? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter’ I have not changed my opinion about it at all since 


52 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


the first report of the Commission was made. I think it is a perfect piece of 
foolishness. 

The Chairman. Why? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Because, in the first place, it would do no good, 
and in the second place, I feel very confident that it would do a great deal of 
harm. In the third place, I do not think it could be maintained even if it was 
once opened. 

Senator Washburn. You said it would do no good. If you relieve the river 
of a large amount of water it would do good at very high water, would it not? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. No, sir; I do not think so. I have very great 
doubts about it. When it was first opened it might, but in a very few years this 
relief would disappear entirely. I think the fiood heights above the outlet 
would ultimately increase. 

Senator Sawyer. If you were to build a dam there when it got up to that sur¬ 
plus water it would not only relieve the water, but the country. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Wherever you divide the channel you must have 
an increased head to carry the water through the two branches. That is, the 
smaller river has the higher slope. 

Senator Sawyer. You would not interfere with the water in the ordinary 
stage? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. You would at high water. 

Senator Sawyer. Use it as a waste way to get rid of that surplus water. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I think at that stage I would raise the levee be¬ 
yond what the water would have been if the waste had not been there. 

Senator Sawyer. Of course, if you did not have it so that it would wash out; 
if you did not get it down to solid foundation to back out the water, I do not 
think it would overflow when the river got to a certain size. 

Senator Washburn. If you give a capacity of discharge of 100,000 cubic feet 
of water a second additional to the present capacity, I do not see how you would 
raise the water below. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I did not say “ below ; ” I said “ above.” It has 
been known, ever since hydraulic laws have been formulated, that if you have a 
stream of a given capacity and divide it, you must have a steeper slope to carry 
the water off than you had when it was one stream. That can only be done by 
raising the water surface above the point of division. 

Senator Gibson. That is, the velocity is checked above? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. The velocity is checked by the increased resistance 
in the two branches, and you must have an increased head to force the water 
through. 

Senator Dolpit. The Mississippi carries a great deal of sediment? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolph. I understood you to say that the process adopted for the im¬ 
provement of the river is to narrow the river at its widest places by construct¬ 
ing dikes which will cause the shallow parts of the river on each side to fill up 
and narrow the channel. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolph. Is it possible to carry all the sediment down the whole length 
of the river and deposit it? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir; I do not think it would make any differ¬ 
ence. At present the Mississippi has to carry not only the sediment brought in 
from other streams, such as the Missouri, but also that from its own banks. 
This latter supply would be cut off if the banks were protected as contemplated 
in the plans of the Commission. 

Senator Dolph. Under the natural state of the river those widest places 
afford easy places for sediment where the velocity of the current is somewhat • 
impeded? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. At some places it deposits, and it scours out at 
others. I do not think there is much permanent deposition. 

Senator Cullom. Along the line of the river? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolph. Is there much sediment carried out when there are breaks? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Very little. You see the heavy sediment is near 
the bottom. 

Senator Gipson. What is the depth of the sedimentary stream near the bot¬ 
tom of the river? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I do not know. I only know that the sediment 
increases as you go down. There is no way in which it can possibly be ascer- 


I 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


53 


tamed how deep down the movement of sediment actually goes on. There is, 
however, very good reason for believing that a considerable portion of the bed of 
The river is in motion all the time. 

Senator Dolph. If your plan is successful in narrowing the river and raising 
its banks, it will remove the sediment and cause it to go through the river into 
the Gulf? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolph. If it is not sufficient to carry the sediment to the Gulf, it 
must be deposited then into the channel of the river and have a tendency to 
fill up the bed of the river? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. If the current were not sufficiently strong to 
carry it forward I think it would, but this is not likely to be the case. 

Senator Washburn. According to your theory it would be desirable to close 
the Atchafalaya outlet, would it not? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. As an outlet, yes. That is to prevent the Missis¬ 
sippi from going into it. 

Senator Washburn. That would raise the water above it. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I do not think it would do so permanently, 
although that would probably be the first effect. 

Senator Washburn. I understood General Comstock to state that he thought 
it was well to maintain the Atchafalaya outlet. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. That is his opinion, not mine. 

The Chairman. You take a cross-section of the river 1,000 feet wide and 15 
feet deep; have you any opinion what the weight of that cross-section would 
be a foot wide? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. 1 do not think I understand your question. 

The Chairman. Suppose the whole weight of water is so much a square 
inch or a square foot, and the whole weight of that water is pressing down 
over the whole cross-section- 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. The depth of water of course will determine the 
pressure. 

The Chairman. It must be enormous in a river a mile wide and 20 feet deep. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. The pressure at any point varies according to the 
depth of the water. If the water is 15 feet deep there will be about 900 pounds 
pressure on each square foot of the bottom. 

The Chairman. Of course the weight is downward? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. With that enormous pressure downward on the bottom of 
this river, and the current going a mile an hour, which is acting on the bottom 
all the time, it will act as a scraper and take the sediment along with it? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. The movement of the bottom depends entirely on 
the velocity of the current. 

The Chairman. A slow current would move it just as a swift one; not so 
rapidly, but to the same depth? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. That depends upon the weight of the material on 
the bottom. Very light material will be moved by a current of small velocity. 
If you have coarse sand or gravel it takes a very much stronger current to 
move it. 

Senator Gibson. You made observations on the river some time ago, I think, 
to ascertain the velocity of the current when the river was at its highest stages 
and yet held within its banks. You determined that the flood, when held in 
the banks of the river, would take just ten days to go from Cairo to New 
Orleans. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Some such figure as that. I do not remember 
exactly. The general idea was that where crevasses took place the velocity 
was checked and the movement of the flood wave was retarded. 

Senator Gibson. You determined from your observation that it took just ten 
days for a flood contained within the river to go from Cairo to the Gulf, and 
that when it passed over the banks of the river it took a hundred days. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. It took a very much longer period that when inside 
its banks. 

Senator Gibson. Does not that involve the whole question of the Mississippi 
River? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Very largely. 

Senator Gibson. With regard to the question of passing flood waters off, if 
those breaks in the levees had not occurred there is every reason to suppose that 
the velocity would have been obtained and the whole water would have passed 
off at a much lower level. 



54 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Lieutenant-Colonel Super. This retardation of velocity has a tend:’icy to 
increase the flood height. The water behind keeps piling up on that in front 
until you get 4 or 5 feet of abnormal elevation. 

Senator Gibson. Have you ever looked at the tables showing the discharge of 
water at Columbus and Carrollton and possibly at some other points furnished 
by Humphreys and Abbot? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I have seen them. 

Senator Gibson. They report that when the river is at a depth of 86 feet at 
Carrollton and it should rise only 6 feet more, which would make it 02 T 6 ^ 
feet, that the volume of discharge of the river is doubled. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Super. I think our observations show fully that much if 
not more. 

Senator Gibson. Now, then, by confining the water to the channel of the river 
by levees so that at that point only 6 feet of water should be contained in the 
levees—the levees should be built so as to hold this amount of water in the 
river—this amount of water in the river would be the equivalent to making 
another Mississippi River on the top of the river when it is 86 feet deep. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Something like that. 

Senator Gibson. Eighty-six and six-tenths feet deep. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. That would be the case at New Orleans. 

Senator Gibson. That shows, therefore, that it is a question of velocity. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Super. I think it is entirely a question of velocity. If 
you can make that water run faster you can safely pass off the largest flood 
that ever came into the river. Anything that tends to retard velocity tends to 
increase the height of the water surface. 

Senator Gibson. If that is the law of the river, you take the flood when it 
reaches Cairo, and instead of being confined in the river and passing on to the 
Gulf at the rapid rate of ten days, therefore diminishing the surface of the 
river, it fills the St. Francis Basin, does it not? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. There is a vast accumulation of water stored there, the ve¬ 
locity is interrupted, retarded, the height increases by this retardation of the 
river itself; then with the accumulated force of this vast amount of water ac¬ 
cumulated in the basin of the St. Francis, that accumulation is precipitated on 
the river below, is it not? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes. sir: it comes out and returns to the Missis¬ 
sippi while it is still high. 

Senator Gibson. That is a flood on top of a flood caused by this retardation, 
because the law of velocity has been suspended. It is like accumulating a great 
body of troops to make an assault. It increases the height of the river at the 
point of attack on the levees below. Now, is not that the reason why the levees 
gave away on the upper line of the Mississippi, in the State of Mississippi, and 
on the lower line of the Arkansas, this concentration which was furnished by 
the St. Francis Basin? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I have not yet had an opportunity to sufficiently 
study the records of this flood; we have not got them yet and I do not feel able 
to discuss the subject intelligently. There are gentlemen present who are more 
familiar with the facts who can doubtless answer that question. 

Senator Gibson. 1 am not asking you with reference to the facts, but with ref¬ 
erence to the theory. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Super. I was going to say that according to my notion— 
I may be mistaken—I think that the great heights that were obtained in the 
lower part of the river were due to the southern tributaries. They had most 
unusual floods. What you were saying, however, is undoubtedly true. I think 
there is very little question that the great flood heights obtained at Helena are. 
higher than they would have been if the water had all passed down the main 
channel. I think the water that is drawn off into the St. Francis Basin and then 
returned at Helena will give a greater height at Helena than if that water were 
to pass down the main channel. The same phenomenon occurs at Vicksburg and 
possibly other places. 

Senator Gibson. The same at Red River at the foot of Tensas Basin? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Super. Exactly. 

Senator Cullom. I believe you and General Comstock are not entirely agreed 
on all matters pertaining to the conduct of the work of the Mississippi River, 
as I understand you. Does that disagreement involve you in any way in carry¬ 
ing on the work with the execution of which you have been charged? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. No, sir. 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 55 

Senator Cullom. You {ire acting under tlie statute without reference to what 
you believe? 

Senator Gibson. You all agree on the plan? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. The Commission does. 

Senator Cullom. You mean a majority of the Commission? 

Senator Giijson. I understand that General Comstock approved the plans, 
hut he did not do so for the same purpose. 

The Chairman. Not for navigation purposes? He does not approve the plans 
for navigation purposes? 

Senator Gibson. He said that it would cost $10,000,000 less to use the levees 
in connection with the improvement of the river for navigation purposes than it 
would cost without them. 

The Chairman. He thought it might cost $10,000,000 less. 

At 12 o’clock m. the committee took a recess until 2 o’clock p. m. 

At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 

STATEMENT OF LIEUT. COL. CHARLES R. SUTER—Continued. 

The Chairman. Captain Condon has handed me some questions which he 
desires should he propounded to you. Would you levee, dyke, spur-dam. etc., 
the upper end of a sediment-bearing stream before you would improve the lower 
end of such stream? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I do not know what is meant by “ improve ” in 
that question. There are different ways of improvement. 

The Chairman. Well, what do you say in answer to his question? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Unless I understand it better than I now do. I 
can hardly answer it. 

The Chairman. Then take it the other way. Would you improve the upper 
end of a sediment-bearing stream before you did the lower? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. If it needed it more; yes. 

The Chairman. Will water flow down an angle or incline of two inches to 
the mile faster than it will flow down {in incline of one inch to the mile? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. That depends on the depth. 

The Chairman. Is the fall greater per mile at Cairo than at New Orleans? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Is the current greater at Cairo than at New Orleans? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I think the difference is very slight. I do not re¬ 
member the exact figures. 

The Chairman. Does not the greater current above bring the mud down faster 
than the slower current at the lower end can discharge it? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I do not think there is a slower current at the 
lower end. 

The Chairman. Suppose the current was faster above. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Then it would, undoubtedly; but I do not think 
such is the case. 

The Chairman. If you build levees higher at the lower end than at the upper 
end, does that increase or decrease the angle of fall? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. It most likely would have nothing to do with it. 

The Chairman. It is claimed that the inflow of water is 2,100,000 cubic feet 
per second and that the overflow of water at the mouths of the Mississippi is 
1,100,000 cubic feet per second; and if this be true, will you explain how you 
would prevent overflows? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. By raising the levees sufficiently. 

The Chairman. Is the South Pass in any sense an outlet of the Mississippi? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. It is one of the mouths. Any outlet can be con¬ 
sidered as a mouth. I suppose the mouth could be considered an outlet. 

The Chairman. Are the mouths of the Mississippi in any sense outlets? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I think they are. 

The Chairman. If you wanted to get the flood water of the Mississippi into 
the Gulf of Mexico quicker than it would now flow through the present mouths, 
would you close up all of the present mouths or would you open more outlets? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I certainly should not open more. Whether I 
would close the others or not is a question I have never particularly considered. 
Our jurisdiction stops at the Head of the Passes, so that I have not considered it. 

The Chairman. If it were possible to make the Lake Borgne outlet wide 
enough and deep enough to lower the flood line of the Mississippi River at that 
place down to Gulf level, would that enormous outflow of flood water increase 
<or decrease the current of the Mississippi River? 



56 


RIVER AND HARROR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. What do you mean, decrease it where; above or 
below ? 

The Chairman. The question does not state which. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. That is a very important question. 

The Chairman. Take it both ways. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. It would certainly decrease it below. 

The Chairman. What would be the effect above? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. First a great increase; eventually I do not think 
there would be any. 

The Chairman. Have you stated what your opinion is of what is called the' 
outlet system? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir; I believe I have. 

Senator Gibson. Have you stated the result of the improvement at Plum Point 
and Lake Providence Reach in relation to navigation? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I think not. 

Senator Gibson. What have been the results? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. The low-water depths have been about doubled. 

Senator Gibson. Do you know what effect the levees have had on the naviga¬ 
tion anywhere? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir; I think they have had a very decided 
effect at Lake Providence, and also to a certain extent at Plum Point. At 
Plum Point the levees have been constructed by the Commission purely and 
entirely to improve navigation. They are local levees, on both banks of the 
river, and the effects have been very marked. 

Senator Gibson. You stated a moment ago in reply to a question by the chair¬ 
man that if you were improving the Mississippi River, even if it were running 
through a wilderness, if the country through which it ran was not peopled, you 
would still build levees on the banks. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Why do you hold that opinion? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Because I consider that the improvement of the 
stream for navigable purposes; without it is impossible. 

The Chairman. Why? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. I think you have got to retain control over the 
whole volume of water. The discharge which passes within the banks is less 
than half of the flood discharge of the river, and the low-water discharge is 
only about one-tenth of that which passes within the banks, about one-twentieth 
of the total discharge, and any, works that you can put in to control the low- 
water flow on a stream like the Mississippi are liable to be utterly destroyed and 
rendered nugatory by this vastly larger volume of water which passes down the 
river during flood stages. At this season of the year the cut-offs occur, which 
will upset any plan of improvement, because they change entirely the regimen of 
the river, its course, its slopes, and everything about it. 

Again, the water being over the works and everything else, has a chance to 
develop new channels precisely where you do not want them to occur. A still 
further effect is produced where the levees are down; the water that goes over 
the banks keeps going out and coming back again. Whenever it makes its 
appearance in the river it acts like a tributary. It produces entirely new 
phases, just as any tributary will. Sometimes it entirely reverses the conditions 
of flow. The influence that levees exert under these heads I believe I have 
stated as conservative. They prevent the river from doing damage to the works 
we put in to improve the low-water discharge of the stream. 

The Chairman. If there was no question about protecting the land, and you 
were simply improving the Mississippi River for navigation, would you have 
built the levees that are now built? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. You say you would? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. So that, regardless of the question of the landowners, you 
say that this Commission has done none too much toward levee building? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. That is my opinion. 

The Chairman. Do you not think the people whose lands are preserved by 
these levees should pay a part of the expense of constructing them? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. That is hardly an engineering question. I think, 
however, the same question might be asked with regard to other improvements. 
For instance, one of the most important features of the work of the Commission 
is the protection of the banks from caving. In doing that we do it entirely in the 





RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 57 

interest of navigation, but it does at the same time prevent many a man’s planta¬ 
tion from caving into the river. 

The C hairman. In other words, you think the levee is a part of your system 
as well as the jetties? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

1 he ( hairman. You mean to say that these dikes and levees are necessarv 
to preserve the channel of the river itself? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. The permanency of the channel? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Yes, sir; that is my view. 

T he Chairman. How long did you say you had been on the river? 

Lieutenant-Colonel Suter. Since 1860. 

STATEMENT OF CAPT. SMITH S. LEACH. 

( apt. Smith S. Leach, United States Engineers, in charge of first and second 
districts of the Mississippi River, appeared before the committee. 

the Chairman. How long an acquaintance have you had with the Mississippi 
River? 

Captain Leach. Since 1878. 

The Chairman. Are you a member of the Commission? 

Captain Leach. Yes, sir; I am a subordinate officer of the Commission. 

The Chairman. Where are you located? 

Captain Leach. At Memphis. 

The Chairman. State what your experience with the river has been. 

Captain Leach. In the summer of 1878 the board of engineers was organized 
which was referred to here by General Comstock and others. I was then second 
lieutenant of engineers and was assigned to duty as recorder of that board'. 
That board undertook extensive surveys, examinations, hydrometric measure¬ 
ments, etc. The field work of a large part and the computations of all of these 
were placed in my immediate charge. I began from that time to study this 
question from the original data and measurements made upon the stream itself, 
and I have done nothing else professionally from that day to this. 

The Chairman. Have you observed the overflows of the river? 

Captain Leach. Repeatedly. I have been over the river in its whole length 
and at almost every stage of water. 

The Chairman. State to the committee as briefly as you can your idea of the 
improvement of the Mississippi River for navigation. 

Captain Leach. To start with what should not be done, I would mention the 
project of taking off any portion of the water of the natural discharge of the 
river at any stage whatever or for any purpose, or at any point. The salient 
point in connection with that topic is, first/ the question of the effect upon the 
channel of the river above and below resulting from taking off such water under 
such circumstance^. I have here a complete map of the Delta of the Missis¬ 
sippi showing its approaches to the Gulf. I may state a fact, which I do not 
think will be denied by any one, that this single-trunk channel as it ap¬ 
proaches the Head of the Passes is one of the finest navigable flowing streams 
on the face of the earth. It is of reasonable width, very deep, and has at all 
times a regular and moderate current. At a point here [indicating on map] it 
is divided into three principal branches. Each one of those branches is narrower 
and shallower and more irregular in its regimen than is the main stream. 
This is the Head of the Passes [indicating on map]. 

At this point where this main stream is divided into three branches the phe¬ 
nomenon is presented of a large and deep and good channel being transformed 
into three narrow and shallow and poor channels. A great deal of talk has 
been heard about the difficulty that Captain Eads had in removing the bar at 
the mouth of South Pass bar. If he were here to-day he would confess a much 
more serious difficulty in dealing with the shoal water at the head of that pass. 
This is the bar that gave him the real difficulty [indicating on map]. This is 
the bar at the Head of the Passes at the point of diffusion, at this point division 
of the main stream. It was to get a greater depth over this bar at the head of 
South Pass that he laid a sill over the other two passes, and constructed the 
funnel-shaped prolongations of the natural banks of this pass in order to 
augment the flow of water through there. 

We have these three passes, each having a bar at each end, and each being 
30 feet average depth between the bars in its original and natural condition 


•58 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


as against 125 or 180 feet depth of the main stream. Here is the South Pass 
[indicating on map]. This is the one that has the great depth. This is the 
one that carries from 20 to 30 feet. This Southwest Pass carries less than that, 
perhaps 16 feet. 

Now, the point I make is this: This phenomenon occurs here [indicating on 
map]. It occurs at the corresponding point on every known alluvial sedimentary 
stream on the face of the earth that branches into a delta formation. 

Now, if the degradation of these subsidiary channels occurs here when the 
stream divides into three parts, why will it not occur at Lake Borgne if you there 
divide it into two? The fact can be explained on no other hypothesis than that 
in division there is weakness, a proverb more familiar in the inverse terms “ In 
union there is strength. 5 ’ I never heard any other advanced for it, and its con¬ 
verse, which the outlet theory demands for its support, is not only absurd on its 
face, but contradicts every fact of the river’s life which has come to my knowl¬ 
edge. Anything further on the subject of outlets is oidy an elaboration of that 
general statement. To substatiate that, if proof should be necessary, there are 
frequent observations in the bed of the river itself. These consist of a large 
number of exact measurements, as precise and accurate for that purpose as 
would be any measurement that could be made of the length of this Capitol 
building. We have not guessed at this thing; we have measured it, and we had 
no theory to establish when we made the measurement, but we made the meas¬ 
urement for the purpose of finding out the theory. 

The measurements have shown conclusively in repeated instances that when 
a crevasse occurs the channel for a few miles immediately below becomes dis¬ 
tinctly smaller. When that crevasse is closed, measurements made before 
and after the closure have shown that this loss in the area of the channel is 
recovered. When a crevasse is closed and immediately after that closure—let 
me change the form of that statement—when a crevasse opens and immediately 
after that opening by exact measurement there is found to be a deterioration 
of the channel of about 12 per cent of its area, and again when this same 
-crevasse is closed after the next succeeding flood there is found to he a recovery 
of this 12 per cent lost, I do not think any other hypothesis will explain it. 

Second in importance will be the deterioration of the navigable depth in this 
channel, which is now an extraordinarily good one, and which can be main¬ 
tained there, as the experience of the last ten years has shown, at a very trifling 
expense. If that channel were injured and deteriorated by the natural and 
inevitable result of taking off a large portion of the flood discharge at a point 
higher up the river, you would then, instead of having little or no expense to 
keep it open, have an enormous annual expense, and even then the condition of 
the channel would be so precarious that the effect on commerce would be very 
detrimental. Ships will go to a port where they know they will find 26 feet 
of water, without doubt, more readily than they would go to a port where 
they were promised 30 feet and might find but 20 feet. A reliable 26-foot chan¬ 
nel is better than a precarious 30-foot channel. 

The Chairman. You are familiar with the methods of tlje Mississippi Com¬ 
mission as to improvements? 

Captain Leach. Will you bear with me a little further on this topic? 

The Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Captain Leach. The question has been discussed over and over again as 
regards the elevation of the bed of the river as the result of the construction 
of levees, and also as to the deterioration of the channel below the outlet. I 
know of no engineering authority that can be quoted in support of this view, 
except by garbling, and as you have had a little garbling already before you I 
would like to read some full and complete extracts. I have before me the report 
of Colonel Ellet. I would like to read a few extracts from it; it will take but 
a moment. I will read the introduction pretty much in extenso. 

The Chairman. When was that report made? 

Captain Leach. Eighteen hundred and fifty. Tt is a report and the only one 
I know of where an engineer of any standing has deliberately and definitely 
proposed to make a certain definite outlet. 

“ In this paper the causes of the more frequent and more extensive overflows 
of the Delta of the Mississippi in recent than in former times are considered, 
and plans suggested for the mitigation of the evil, 

“ The greater frequency and more alarming character of the floods are 
attributed— 

“ Primarily, to the extension of cultivation throughout the Mississippi Valley, 
by which the evaporation is thought to be in the aggregate diminished, the 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 59 

diamage obviously increased, and the floods hurried forward more rapidly into 
the country below. 

Secondly, to the extension of the levees along the borders of the Missis¬ 
sippi, and of its tributaries and outlets, by means of which the water that was 
roimerlv allowed to spread over many thousand square miles of lowlands is 
becoming more and more confined to the immediate channel of the river, and is, 
therefore, compelled to rise higher and flow faster, until, under the increased 
pow er of the current, it may have time to excavate a wider and deeper trench 
to give vent to the increased volume which it conveys. 

Thirdly, to cut-offs, natural and artificial, by which the distance traversed 
by the stream is shortened, its slope and velocity increased, and the water con¬ 
sequently brought down more rapidly from the country above, and precipitated 
more rapidly upon the country below. 

"Fourthly, to the gradual progress of the Delta into the sea, by which the 
course of the river at its embouchure is lengthened, the slope and velocity 
there are diminished and the water consequently thrown back upon the lands 
above. 

" It is shown that each of these causes is likely to be progressive, and that 
the future floods throughout the length and breadth of the Delta and along the 
great streams tributary to the Mississippi are destined to rise higher and higher 
as society spreads over the upper States, as population adjacent the river 
increases, and the inundated lowlands appreciate in value. 

“For the prevention of the increasing dangers growing out of these several 
cooperative causes six distinct plans are discussed and advocated: 

“ First. Better, higher, and stronger levees in lov r er Louisiana, and more effi¬ 
cient surveillance—a local measure, but one requiring State legislation and 
official execution and discipline. 

“ Second. The prevention of additional cut-offs; a restraint which may call 
for national legislation, or possibly judicial interference to prohibit the States 
and individuals above from deluging the country below. 

“ Third. The formation of an outlet of the greatest attainable capacity from 
the Mississippi to the head of Lake Borgne, with a view, if possible, to convert 
it ultimately into the main channel of the river. 

“ Fourth. The enlargement of the Bayou Plaquemine, for the purpose of giv¬ 
ing relief to that part of the coast which now suffers most from the floods, viz, 
to the borders of the Mississippi from above Baton Rouge to New Orleans. 

“ Fifth. The enlargement of the channel of the Atchafalaya for the purpose 
of extending relief higher up the coast, and conveying to the sea, by an inde¬ 
pendent passage, the discharge from Red River and the Washita. 

“ Sixth. The creation of great artificial reservoirs, and the increase of the ca¬ 
pacity of the lakes on the distant tributaries, by placing dams across their outlets 
with apertures sufficient for their uniform discharge, so as to retain a portion 
of the water above until the floods have subsided below. It is proposed by this 
process to compensate, in some degree, for the loss of those natural reservoirs 
which have been and are yet to be destroyed by the levees, and, at the same 
time and by the same expedient, improve the navigation of all the great tribu¬ 
taries of the Mississippi, while affording relief to the suffering and injured 
population of the Delta.” 

Now I read again from part 2 of Prolongation of the Delta: 

“ It is a popular belief that the bed of the Mississippi is gradually rising, and 
to that assumed cause is not unfrequently attributed the constantly increasing 
height required for the protecting levees. But his belief can be traced to no bet¬ 
ter evidence than the fact that certain points which formerly exhibited deep 
soundings have subsequently become shallower, a circumstance which is attribu¬ 
table altogether to the shifting nature of the shore and bottom of the river. 
As consequences of the changing and movable character of the soil through 
which the Mississippi flows, shores which are at one period curved subsequently 
become salient; banks that at one time wash and cave in, at a later date fill up; 
places which during one period are gradually growing deeper, at another become 
less deep and to the sounding line indicate an elevation of the bottom. There 
is, in fact, no evidence of any change in the general level of the river’s bed 
beyond what may be inferred from the evident prolongation of the Delta, the 
lengthening out of the course of the stream, and the consequent diminution of 
the plane of descent. But this elevation of the bed is not indicated by any 
increased depth of the stream, though it must of necessity occasion a correspond¬ 
ing elevation of the surface. Any increase in the height of the floods, produced 
by a given body of water discharged in a given time, beyond what may be justly 




60 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


attributed to this extension of the Delta, must, therefore, be sought in other 
adequate causes. 

“ The idea which has acquired a certain hold upon public opinion that an 
appreciable elevation of the bed of the Mississippi has been produced and is still 
going forward in consequence of the extension of the levees, has no foundation 
in experience or philosophic deduction. The extension of the levees, it will be 
hereafter shown, exercises great influence upon the height of the floods, but not r 
as is supposed, by raising the bed of the river. It is true that by the increased 
transporting power which the levees give to the river and by their prevention 
of lateral deposits the Mississippi is enabled to convey greater deposits into 
the Gulf, and thus, in some slight degree, accelerate the formation of land oppo¬ 
site its mouths. To this amount and no further the extension of the levees may 
promote the elevation of the river’s bed, but this is not an appreciable quantity. 

“ It is customary to point to the Po in evidence of the effect of embanking the 
coasts of streams in producing an elevation of the bed of the river. And it is 
assumed that because the bottom of the Po and of all rivers that empty into the 
Adriatic is to be found in the great quantity of earthy matter which they trans¬ 
port to the sea, and the shallowness of the gulf into which this material is con¬ 
veyed, this deposit in the course of twenty centuries has produced a prolonga¬ 
tion of the delta of the Po estimated at about 25 miles, and has converted cities 
which at the commencement of the Christian era were respectable seaports into 
inland towns, at this day 20 miles from the seashore.” 

Senator Gibson. You mean to say that more modern investigations have 
shown that the Po did not rise? 

Captain Leach. At the time that Colonel Ellet was writing in the United 
States, Lombardini had written in Italy a complete refutation of De Prouy’s 
conclusions as to the bed of the Po rising. Lombardini’s researches were prob¬ 
ably not known to Colonel Ellet, who, feeling himself obliged to accept the cur¬ 
rent belief that the lied of the Po had risen, is so confident that levees had and 
could have nothing to do with it that he takes pains to bring forward another 
explanation. 

Cut-offs are mentioned in this outlet scheme as being in the dim future desir¬ 
able to be done. 

“Among the causes of inundations that have recently produced so much loss 
and distress on the lower Mississippi, in the opinion of the writer, must be 
enumerated the cut-offs which have been made at and below the mouth of Red 
River. It is true that men of science have denied, and do still contest, this 
point. But the opinion here entertained rests on what are deemed to be the 
natural laws of the flow of the river, and. moreover, on indisputable results. 
The theory which is entertained by many intelligent persons, that by shortening 
the channel and cutting off the bends of the river the velocity of the current will 
be increased, the channel scoured out wider and deeper, the floods conveyed 
more rapidly to the sea. and the surface therefore reduced, is all perfectly true, 
excepting the practical conclusion.” 

The following extract is read to show that Colonel Ellet’s mind dwelt espe¬ 
cially upon an outlet as a means of taking off water that could not be controlled 
in any other way : 

“ But there is another ground for the practical conclusion that extensive out¬ 
lets may be opened without a shadow of fear for the preservation of the channel 
below. The Mississippi and its natural outlets are now greatly overburdened 
in times of extreme high water and are unable to vent the volume which is 
poured into them by the distant tributaries as fast as it is brought down. This 
excess of water finds new outlets by overflowing the natural banks or through 
crevasses in the artificial levees. Outlets, then, acting only as high-water vents, 
through which this surplus may be let off. can not possibly diminish the actual 
area of the river’s section below, for such outlets will discharge water which 
does not pass through the channel at all. 

❖ * * * •-:< * * 

“Again, it has been seen that the volume discharged by the floods of the lower 
Mississippi is annually increasing, in consequence of the extension of levees 
above. In opening outlets below Red River sufficient to give passage to this 
increased supply, as it comes, we can not possibly impair the efficiency of the 
present channel, for this increased discharge has had no part in the creation or 
maintenance of the. present channel.” 

That passage bears on the same point. 

“A word may be added in allusion to the fear often expressed that the new 
outlets, which it is proposed to open at points where the route which the waters 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


61 


will follow to tlie sea will be shortened, may ultimately become so enlarged as 
to absorb the Mississippi itself, and thus leave the city of New Orleans on some 
secondary bayou. 

“ reply to this apprehension is the fact already stated, that the water 
passing through such vents is never known to cut out or deepen its channels 
without assistance. The bayous which still lead from the river into the adjoin¬ 
ing lakes and swamps have been in activity during thousands of years, and do 
not seem to have gained the least on the Mississippi, while the whole Delta 
shows evidence of ancient outlets which have been filled up by deposits and now 
no longer act in relieving the discharge of the river. 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

“ Indeed, the writer is not in possession of any fact which goes to show that 
any outlet can be made from the Mississippi: above New Orleans, which, left to 
itself, will become larger and ultimately excavate a new channel into the Gulf. 
If we could calculate with confidence on such a result, the problem of protect¬ 
ing the country below Red River would be relieved of all its difficulties at once, 
for we might then open an outlet into Lake Borgne, and, turning the Mississippi 
into that arm of the Gulf, transfer its embouchure to the deep water south of 
Ship Island, and thus promptly reduce its high-water surface some 6 feet at 
New Orleans. But, unfortunately, the water can not open the way without 
assistance, and the new channel will not be produced without other aid.” 

Senator Washburn. You infer that he favors that if it could be done? 

Captain Leach. His conclusion appears very plain. He is in favor of a lim- 
v ited high-water outlet. 

He goes on to say: 

“ These objections to the use of outlets, to a limited extent, are not tenable. 
It is, therefore, proposed to resort to high-water vents so far as is necessary to 
obtain prompt though limited relief from pressing distress and impending 
calamity, but not to rely on this expedient exclusively, or even to look to it for 
full protection or permanent security. 

“ The object of this examination is not considered to be merely the protection 
of the country below Red River from the difficulties against which the popula¬ 
tion there is now struggling, but to embrace the whole area of the Delta, and to 
do the work by some plan that will not be incompatible with the intention of 
Congress, as it is manifested in recent legislation, to reclaim all the lands in 
that vast area which are subject to inundation. These great purposes will be 
aided but not accomplished by outlets which, therefore, are now only recom¬ 
mended for local relief and limited application.” 

;jc # ❖ H: ** ?■: 

After describing outlets in full he says: 

“ But, in addition to all this, the protection of lower Louisiana will require 
other expedients. For this State, indeed, there is no alternative. She can not 
wait for Congress to discuss, doubt, survey, and appropriate. She can not wait 
for the slow machinery of legislation. She must build levees without hesitation 
or delay, or see her fields annually swept by the floods. 

:|s *” * * * * * $ 

“ But, while recommending these prompt and vigorous measures, it is the 
duty of the writer to express his conviction that, after all these means of relief, 
carried as far as prudence and proper regard to economy and the interests upon 
which this excess of water will be turned, have been exhausted, they will be 
found insufficient to secure even the State of Louisiana against the floods which, 
at no distant day, will be poured down the Mississippi, while the great area sub¬ 
ject to inundation in the States of Arkansas and Mississippi can receive no 
sensible relief from any of these expedients but than of levees. To secure the 
whole Delta it will be necessary to commence promptly and press vigorously the 
great work of retaining the waters in the mountains.” 

This is the reservoir idea. There are more of these extracts than I thought 
there were. I think I have read all that are really important, and I hope 
enough to give you the opinion that the idea, the tenor of this report, as pre¬ 
viously put before you, is erroneous. I hope it was unintentionally done, but I 
can scarcely believe it. 

Now, if this report is read, the impression is obtained that Colonel Ellet was 
in apprehension of a perfectly appalling increase of floods in the Mississippi. 
He goes so far as to say that he thinks in no long period of time the increase of 
floods due to the progress of deforesting and the extension of cultivation and 
drainage, together with the building of levees, will cause an increase in the 
height of the floods of IS feet at Red River. Since that time deforesting has 


62 RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL, 


gone on for forty years, and I believe now is about at a maximum. I think that 
tree planting is keeping pace with deforesting. Cultivation and drainage have 
gone on in the Mississippi Valley, and have gotten nearly as .far as they are 
going, and we have had no such elevation floods. We have as yet had no floods 
that could not be restrained with levees of moderate heights. ■ 

Such floods as Colonel Ellet anticipated have never been realized; never will 
be; never can be. The whole tenor of his report shows very plainly that he 
was forced to accept the outlet theory against his deeper conviction, simply 
because he thought that no levees which could possibly be built would restrain 
the floods which he expected in the future. 

Ills idea was that the extension of the levees would hurry forward the dis¬ 
charge from above. The elevation of the flood line would begin at Cairo and 
increase until it reached this figure, 18 feet at Red River 

Subsequent experience has shown that these apprehensions were entirely 
unfounded. We get a good illustration of that from the Po at Ferrara, which 
occupies a position on the Po about the same as that of Vicksburg or Natchez on 
the Mississippi. The super-elevation of the flood surface within the history 
of the Po for several hundred years, due to the extension of levees and other 
causes, is about 3 feet. It is reasonable to suppose that the super-elevation 
caused by the hastening forward of the discharge of the floods will bear some 
relation to the slope of the river and its size. In slope the Po leaves off at the 
sea about where the Mississippi begins at Cairo. If the hastening forward of 
the flood on the Po, with a slope of from 30 inches per mile at its headwaters to 
5 at the sea, results in an increased height of 3 feet at Ferrara, we may reason¬ 
ably expect that the super-elevation of floods due to the same cause on the Mis¬ 
sissippi will be less in amount—less than 3 feet, since the greatest slope of the 
latter stream is but little in excess of the least slope of the former. 

The Chairman. In |iow long a period? 

Captain Leach. Forever; the causes of increase must culminate at some time. 

The Chairman. Captain Leathers says the bottom of the river has risen 7 or 
S feet now. 

Captain Leach. I know he does. 

The Chairman. What do you say 7 about that? 

Captain Leach. The gauge records show that the absolute elevation of the 
low-water surface is about, as nearly as can be figured, where it always has 
been at various points. Captain Lethers runs his boat through low water, at 
about 7 feet depth, and if the bottom has risen 7 feet, the surface remaining 
stationary, he would have no water to run his boat through. He would have 
to run it on wheels. The low-water surface has not risen. We have unques¬ 
tionable evidence as to that. We have measurements just as good as any 
man can make. We have records that have been made at various places by a 
great many different people, so that there could be no collusion about it, no 
mistake about it. They agree perfectly; they are consistent with each other. 
Their reports are that the low-water surface is exactly where it was for about 
the same volume of discharge. The records at Natchez go back to the begin¬ 
ning of this century. 

The Chairman. Captain Leathers says the bottom of the river has risen at 
Memphis. 

Captain Leacii. I do not know what Captain Leathers has stated. The 
records at Memphis show nothing of the kind. 

The Chairman. Now, captain, the committee will be glad to have you give 
your views as to the plan the Commission have adopted to improve the river. 

Captain Leach. As to the improvement of the river. I do not know that I have 
anything new to add over and above what has been stated. The plan of the 
Commission has been outlined. The degree of success that has been attained 
has been stated. In all those points I can do no better than to say that I fully 
concur. 

The Chairman. General Comstock says that in his opinion levees are not 
necessary to improve the navigation of the Mississippi River, while Major Suter 
says that in his opinion the levees are essential. What is your opinion about 
that? 

Captain Leach. My opinion is that they are absolutely essential; that there 
are certain well-defined possibilities to the improvement of the Mississippi 
River. There are certain natural conditions present which by proper scientific 
treatment can be made to produce a stream of a certain degree of navigability' 
It lias its ultimate possibilities. With levees, that possibility can be attained; 
without levees it can not. Without levees a stream can be improved; with 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 63 

levees it can be improved much more. That is my idea of the river with and 
without the levees. 

I he Chairman. General Comstock, what is your view—is it best in making 
;m appropriation of two or three millions for the improvement of the Mississippi 
River to direct the expenditure of money at partcular pointsV 

General Comstock. If the money is intended to be spent in protecting towns 
and cities and villages along the river, that object will be attained by that proc¬ 
ess, but probably there will be very little left for the improvement of the river 
generally. 

The Chairman. Has not the Commission, so far as navigation and its interests 
are concerned, been very much crippled by the action of Congress in thus dis¬ 
posing of its appropriations? 

General Comstock. I think so in some degree, because I think Congress would 
have given us probably a larger amount for the general improvement of the 
river if they had not made specific appropriations. For instance, in the last 
bill there was an appropriation of fifty or sixty thousand dollars for Columbus, 
some for Greenville, and so on down. Those were all places where money would 
come out of what we otherwise would have had to use for the general improve¬ 
ment of the river. 

The Chairman. Major Suter, I want to ask you the same question. 

Major Suter. My opinion is about the same as General Comstock’s. 

Captain Leach. That is a question rather higher in the horizon than I have 
ever been called upon to consider. I am only a subordinate. I have tried to 
execute the plans of the Commission and to carry out the will of Congress 
expressed in the law, and in regard to probable or possible improvement in the 
method of making appropriations I do not know that I have any opinion to 
express. • ' • 

Senator Washburn. I would like to ask a question. Suppose Congress should 
appropriate two and a half or three million dollars for the improvement of the 
lower Mississippi without restriction, how would it be expended by the Missis¬ 
sippi River Commission? 

General Comstock. I can answer that. I do not think it would be an unjust 
distribution to make the distribution we have made heretofore, two-thirds for 
the improvement of the river and one-third for levees. 

Senator Gibson. Captain Leach, you are not a member of the Mississippi 
River Commission? 

Captain Leach. No, sir. 

Senator Gibson. I suppose shortly after you graduated from West Point you 
were assigned to the Mississippi River Commission? 

Captain Leach. I graduated in 1875, and in 1879 I was assigned as secretary 
of the Commission. 

Senator Gibson. Did you have any preconceived notions as to how the river 
should be treated? 

Captain Leach. Not at all. 

Senator Gibson. Your opinion is based upon your experience and observation 
on the river? 

Captain Leach. Entirely so. 

Senator Gibson. Are you a native or a resident of the Valley of the Missis¬ 
sippi ? i 

Captain Leach. No, sir; I am a native of Indiana. 

Senator Washburn. You do not agree with Colonel Ellet in the opinion that 
these outlets, what you call high-water outlets, are desirable? 

Captain Leach. No, sir. 

Senator Washburn. Under no condition of things? 

Captain Leach. No, sir; because the conditions under which Colonel Ellet 
arrived at the conclusion he did were predictions for the future. We are now 
in a good part of that future. We see that those predictions will not be realized. 

Senator Washburn. Why should not the same principle apply? We have had 
very high water this year, perhaps not as high as he contemplated, but cer¬ 
tainly very high. Why should not the same principle apply in the very high 
water we have had this year as he contemplated? 

Captain Leach. The best method of controlling a flood is by levees. There 
are physical limits to the building of levees, and if a flood went so high as to 
exceed' those limits, then it would be necessary to obtain relief. It was under 
such apprehension, in my opinion, that Colonel Ellet proposed an outlet. 

Senator Washburn. Major Suter takes the position that the river with these 
outlets would not discharge the water as rapidly as though it were held in one 
channel. 


64 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Captain Leach. I think it is fully agreed that there would be an immediate 
relief. The great destruction will come on the second or third generations 
hence, and of course if a man is under water he will get out, regardless of what 
is going to happen to his descendants. 

Senator Washburn. You think that by making these outlets, take the Atcha- 
falaya, we would afford immediate relief from the great floods? 

Captain Leach. It would afford slight local relief from the pending flood, 
undoubtedly. 

Senator Washburn. In other words, it would discharge the water more 
rapidly than though ycu attempted to maintain it in one channel? 

Captain Leach. I do not know. 

Senator Washburn. You would get rid of it? 

Captain Leach. Yes, sir; it would reduce the level slightly. Two years ago 
"l thought myself, and stated before a committee of this Senate that I thought 
it possible to reduce the surface 10 feet by opening the Lake Borgne outlet. I 
should be compelled to divide that by 2 now—5 feet, by any possible outlet. 

Senator Washburn. And you hold still further that the degree of elevation 
would decrease as the years went by? . 

Captain Leach. Very much. The scope of the river to the mouth of the 
passes would be increased. Now, if you want to increase the inclination of a 
line one end of which is fixed, it can only be done by raising the other end. The 
Mississippi River from the Gulf to New Orleans is such a line. Its lower end 
is fixed at Gulf level, and if it is compelled by division to take a steeper slope, 
it can only do it by raising its level at New Orleans. The divided channels must 
inevitably take a higher slope, and in doing so the point of their divergence 
must be elevated absolutely. 

Senator Gibson. And that would make a bar. 

Captain Leach. Unquestionably, and it will raise the flood line also. Nothing 
else you can do will elevate the flood plane so certainly. In fact, that is the 
one solitary thing that must give New Orleans bigger floods than ever before. 

The Chairman. Captain Cowden wants me to ask you certain questions. 
Would you levee-dike, spur-dam, etc., the upper end of a sediment-bearing 
stream before you would improve the lower end of such a stream? 

Captain Leach. That would depend entirely upon the conditions, if the 
lower end demanded improvement in the interest of navigation and the upper 
end did not, I would sacrifice my theories and improve the lower end first, pro¬ 
vided I held such theory, and on the converse if the upper end demanded im¬ 
provement and the lower end did not, I would improve the upper end. I would 
improve the end which first demanded it. 

The Chairman. Will water flow down an angle or incline of 2 inches to the 
mile faster than it will flow down an incline of 1 inch to the mile? 

Captain Leach. Not necessarily. It may flow very much faster down the 
lower inclination. 

The Chairman. The same volume and the same width? 

Captain Leach. No restrictions with regard to volume were made. I was 
only asked one question with regard to velocity and slope. The velocity 
depends, as nearly as it can be stated in brief terms, on the square root of the 
angle of the fall and the square root of the mean depth. To increase the mean 
depth will increase the velocity just as much as an equal increase of slope. 
The average mean velocity of high water from Cairo to New Orleans does not 
differ very much from G feet in a second; that regardless of considerable 
changes in slope. Repeated observations, hundreds of them, are available to 
show that there is a remarkable uniformity in the mean flood velocity from 
Cairo to the Gulf. 

The Chairman. Is the fall greater at Cairo than at New Orleans? 

Captain Leach. It is. 

The Chairman. Is the current greater at Cairo than at New Orleans? 

Captain Leach. A little greater at low water, but at high water it is almost 
the same. 

The Chairman. Then does not the greater current above bring the mud down 
faster than the slower current at the lower end can discharge it? 

Captain Leach. There is no greater current above. 

The Chairman. If you build levees higher at the lower end than at the upper 
end, does that increase or decrease the angle of fall? 

Captain Leach. I do not think it has any effect at all. 

The Chairman. It is claimed that the inflow of water is 2,100,000 cubic feet 
per second, and that the outflow of water at the mouths of the Mississippi is 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 65 


Captain Leach. 
The Chairman. 
Captain Leach. 
The Chairman. 


overflows? CUl)1C P ° l secoiKl ’ and > if tbis be true, how would you prevent 

that there '•^vorv^ , <)1U ' bes t'known principles of river physics, that is 

itself If the witei- Sf" ”° ir effect in the volume* the channel 
Orleans and I am asked wh f la <lt Ca J 10 faster tban is flowing out at New 
to raisiiii the surface of f goeS; 1 am able to reply that it goes 

water to be raised nnd ft wate F: There ai ‘ e thousands of square miles of 

The Chairman Is tho limeS 111 1>laces as bi " b as 2 or 3 feet a day. 

* ‘ ^ e South I ass in any sense an outlet of the Mississippi? 
sir. 

Are the mouths of the Mississippi in any sense outlets? 

In every sense. 

Hio Cnif AT • lf ^°, U wanted t0 s et the flood water of the Mississippi into 
would vou^ownn nft, than rt T°” ]d now flow through the present mouths, 

p! 2 “ t L A o,t 1 T i , • , P T e ^ moutl,s ov would yon open more outlets? 

Captain Leach. I certainly should not close up all the mouths of any stream 

1 admit that 1 Id leave at least one opS. St 

me Chairman. V ould you open any more outlets"? 

Captain Leach. No, sir. 

The Chairman. If it were possible to make the Lake Borgne outlet wide 
enough and deep enough to lower the flood line of the Mississippi River at that 
place down to the Gulf level, would that enormous outflow of flood water 
increase or decrease the current of the Mississippi River? 

Captain Leach. It would increase the current for a short distance above 
enormously and it would decrease the current below. In fact, if the hypothesis 
stated were realized, there would not be any current at all below except a little 
ebb and flow of the tide, and of course it would increase the current enormously 
above, it would aggravate the destruction of the banks, and in that way would 
not only make the maintenance of a levee system along there very precarious, 
but^ it would make the work of regulation of the stream very difficult. 

The Chairman. How does this year’s floods compare with floods of previous 
years? 

Captain Leach. The data are not in yet. There are some peculiar develop¬ 
ments that would require study before expressing a definite opinion. I would 
say as the result of what I have seen that I believe the flood at Memphis was 
about 5 per cent less than in 1882, the greatest in volume we have ever had, 
taking the whole length of the river. At Helena it approficlied closely to the 
18S2 flood, and below Helena it was the greatest flood of record in every respect 
except one—duration. In every other respect it was the greatest 'flood on 
record. 

The Chairman. How does the land actually overflowed compare with that of 
1882? 


Captain Leach. About 20 per cent as much. 

Senator Washburn. Twenty per cent less than in 1882? 

Captain Leach. Only 20 per cent of what was overflowed in 1882. 

The Chairman. What do you charge that to? 

Captain Leach. The levees. The overflow was made possible by the breaks 
in the levees. There were breaks of less than 2 miles, perhaps, in 1,300 miles. 
I may say, generally speaking, in regard to the possibility of maintaining a levee 
system for restraining floods, we have this year with the greatest flood on record 
approached more nearly the complete restraint of the flood than ever before. 

The ^Chairman. Suppose the levees had not broken, would the overflow not 
have occurred? 

Captain Leach. The river was almost at its height before the breaks began, 
and from information which will be placed before the committee later it will be 
seen that the taking out of a very large quantity of water, at one place 400,000 
cubic feet per second, had a very slight, unexpectedly slight, effect in reducing 
the height of the river. It is perfectly reasonable to suppose that an addition 
of 400,000 cubic feet per second would have had no greater effect in raising the 
river than the outlet had in depressing it. I think there is a great deal of evi¬ 
dence to show that with grades in some parts 2 feet higher than we now have, 
and in other parts no higher than now, and with levees thoroughly policed and 
controlled from the beginning of the flood, there would be few or no breaks. 

The Chairman. What was the difficulty? 

Captain Leach. Defective foundations. 

The Chairman. Whose fault is that? 


R AND H APP —05-5 



66 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Captain Leach. I do not know exactly where to put it. 

The Chairman. Were they built by the United States engineers? 

Captain Leach. Some of them, and some not; but the foundation was simply 
what nature left, not prepared foundations. I think, however, that we have 
underestimated the necessity of thoroughly exploring the foundations of the 
levee. I think all the engineers connected with the levee work are agreed upon 
that now. 

The Chairman. Do the levees cave into the river? 

Captain Leach. Occasionally. The Commission within the last two or three 
years has distinctly committed itself to the policy of preferring, in the order of 
progress in bank protection by revetment, localities where the caving will involve 
large levees. I may say, generally, with regard to the history of the levee sys¬ 
tem, that over three-fourths, probably, of the entire sum of money expended by 
the States in the last ten or fifteen years in the construction of levees would 
have been saved if the United States had prevented the banks from caving. 

Senator Gibson. You said that this recent flood was the greatest flood of 
which you have any record? 

Captain Leach. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. You mean in its height, or in its volume? 

Captain Leach. In its volume. 

Senator Gibson. You were speaking of the volume? 

Captain Leach. Yes, sir; but at some places it was greater in height. 

Senator Gibson. More water has passed down the Mississippi this winter in 
its flood stages than ever before. 

Captain Leach. I believe so; that is, below the mouth of the White River. 
The very top of this flood was caused by the discharge of a phenomenal volume 
of water out of the White and Arkansas rivers upon the fairly large flood 
which was passing Memphis. 

Senator Gibson. Have you any knowledge, from tradition or data, of the flood 
of 1S28? 

Captain Leach. There is some data on that subject, but I am not familiar 
with it now. I have not looked at it for a long time. 

Senator Gibson. Have you heard from old people living in the valley anything 
about the flood of 1828? 

Captain Leach. No, I have not. The only thing I know about it is that there 
is a paragraph abopt it in the Humphreys and Abbott report, and what data 
there is is collated there. 

Senator Gibson. You ascribe these breaks in the levees to the enormous body 
of water that pressed against them? 

Captain Leach. To the water against them, so long and with greater head 
than was ever known before in their history. By greater head I do not mean 
greater actual height of water in the river, but you know very well that if levees 
break extensively and back water rises behind them of course there is little or 
no head against them. In the flood of 1882 the levees, to be sure, were exposed 
to water perhaps 50 or 60 per cent longer than this year, but this year they were 
mostly dry behind. 

Senator Gibson. What are the facts, first, as to the number of miles that gave 
away this year in comparison with the floods of 1882 or 1S84 and so on, and, 
secondly, the number of breaks? 

Captain Leach. I have here the report of a number of engineers made to the 
recent Vicksburg convention. It is signed by about fourteen or fifteen engineers. 
This number comprises the United States engineers in charge of the district 
where the principal overflow occurred this year, two members of the Mississippi 
River Commission, and all the civil engineers engaged under all State organiza¬ 
tions in the guarding and maintenance of levees during this flood. If anybody 
in the world has information about this thing these men have, and if any state¬ 
ment could be relied upon these gentlemen’s statements certainly can. 

“ The disasters from the recent flood have been exaggerated and magnified 
beyond their true proportions by the sensational treatment, and which has 
tended to shake confidence in the efficiency of the levee system. In confirmation 
of this, attention is called to the following: 

“ In 1882 the total number of crevasses in the levees was 284, aggregating 589 
miles in width. 

“ In 1883 the number of crevasses was 224, with an aggregate width of 341.1 
miles. 

“ In 1884 the crevasses numbered 204, aggregating 106.04 miles in width. 

“ The result of the crevasses enumerated during these three years were the 
general overflow of the Mississippi delta. 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION . BILL. 


67 


In the present flood, the dangers of which are nearly passed, the crevasses 
which have occurred number 23, aggregating about 4] miles in width in a total 
length of 1,1(10 miles of lei r ee—one-half of 1 per cent of the total line of levees, 
notwithstanding that the present flood has exceeded those of the three years 
cited in the height attained and all points below, and has not exceeded in 
duration.” 

Senator Gibson. I wish you would state what levees constructed by the Mis¬ 
sissippi River Commission, or in accordance with their plans, by the Army engi¬ 
neers, have given away. 

Captain Leach. I really have no information on that point whatever. 

Senator Gibson. lias a single one given away? 

Captain Leach. I do not know. None of these levees are in my district. 

Senator Gibson. Yours is the Memphis district. 

Captain Leach. The first and second. This year we had but a single break, 
one at Austin, loss than 300 feet wide. 

Senator Gibson. Built by the United States? 

Captain Leach. By the State. 

Senator Gibson. Has any of the work in your district built by the United 
States engineers given away? 

Captain Leach. No, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Are there any there? 

^Captain Leach. Yes, sir; 1 have about 30 miles on one side and 15 on another, 
45 miles in all, at Plum Point reach, and about 15£ from Helena down. Half of 
this was built by the United States and all the Plum Point levees. 

While I am on the subject of the Plum Point levees I would like to make a 
' little statement. 

The Commission in carrying out the work in the early years at Plum Point 
had not provided for any levees. In a debate in the Senate on one of the river 
and harbor bills the point was made by a Senator that the Commission was pro¬ 
fessing to make an experimental application of their system at Plum Point reach 
and a part of their plan was a levee. That year an allotment was made and a 
levee built on the Tennessee side of the reach. The next year an allotment was 
made for levees on the Arkansas side and those levees were built. A party was 
engaged all the time in making surveys. The surveys made after the construc¬ 
tion of the second line of levees and before the first flood and again after the first 
flood showed that the high bars in the regulated or deepened channel of about 
3,500 feet width had had their tops scalped off 8 feet uniformly. Nothing of the 
kind had ever occurred before, and in the two crossings under control and under 
improvement the maximum depths had increased in one case 1 foot and in an¬ 
other case 2 feet, and they have remained to this time. 

The Chairman. Since the levees were built? 

Captain Leach. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Have you any idea what it would cost to repair these levees? 

Captain Leach. That would depend entirely upon the scheme adopted. My 
belief is now that we can strike with much more certainty than ever before. 
This flood, with all its disasters, has convinced me, and others, I think, of what 
we before believed, but could not prove—that is, that we can with reasonable 
levees confine any flood we are likely to have, and it seems to me that instead of 
working as we have heretofore we ought to change the plan altogether and give 
a little more money and reduce the risk. I think it is perfectly safe now—a 
year ago I would not have dared to say so—to have a scheme of levees that will 
be almost impregnable, and to do that I suppose will cost in the neighborhood 
of $10,000,000 at prevailing prices. 

The Chairman. Ten millions for repairs alone? 

Captain Leach. To repair and enlarge and levee the St. Francis basin. To 
repair the present breaks alone, I think $100,000 will do at present rates. The 
breaks are not very large and do not occur where the levees are very high. No 
very high levees have broken. The massive levees are all intact. 

Senator Washburn. Let us understand what you propose to do with the 


$ 10 , 000 , 000 . , . , , ,, 

Captain Leach. Ten millions will put up a line of levees 4 feet above the 

highest known water, with strong profile on the west bank from Cairo to the 
month of the St Francis. That is the first thing. It will also increase the work 
at Plum Point to that standard. It will build up the White River front from 
Helena to and including Laconia to the same grade and profile. It will enlarge 
the Yrkansas levees from the high land at Ames Ridge down past Aikansas pity 
and on past the State line down to Red River. It will enlarge the lower district 


68 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


of the Yazoo front, and make some enlargements from point to point as may be 
necessary in the upper district. It will increase and strengthen the levees on 
both sides of the river where ever they now exist. 

Senator Washburn. Would it build all the levees that are required? 

Captain Leach. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. What is going to become of the other $65,000,000 which 
have been estimated for? 

Captain Leach. That sum will be required for the caving banks and for any 
other work that may be necessary in closing high-water chutes, and in case of 
local obstructions of navigation, taking such means as may be necessary to 
remove them. I mean that the sixty-five millions will control the whole river. 

Senator Washburn. How will the seventy-five millions be expended? You 
propose to expend ten millions for levees; how would the other sixty-five mil¬ 
lions be expended? 

Captain Leach. In the first place I may say that sixty-five millions is the max¬ 
imum estimate of any engineer connected with the work. My own estimate 
would be less than half of it, and I do not think my estimate is the lowest pos¬ 
sible. Some of the money w r ould have to be expended to protect the banks of the 
river from caving. 

Senator Washburn. How do you get at that? 

Captain Leach. By a system of revetment, mattresses of brush ballasted with 
stone. 

The Chairman. Have not some of these mattresses caved in? 

Captain Leach. Not recently. Not since we found out how to build them. 
We have not lost any since we found out how to build them. 

The Chairman. Then, in your opinion, the amount of money that it required 
to build a canal from Manchester, England, to deep water will protect the Mis¬ 
sissippi River from top to bottom? 

Captain Leach. Fifty millions will do it handsomely. 

Senator Washburn. Do you agree with General Comstock that so far as the 
improvement of navigation is concerned, that is to be accomplished more by 
improvements in the bottom of the river than by levees? 

Captain Leach. No ; I do not agree with him in that respect. I have stated 
my position as definitely as I can. I believe that the improvement is progressive, 
that a little improvement is better than none, and that complete improvement is 
best of all, and is what the people need and demand. Partial improvement may 
be effected by partial control. Channel works will protect the river and control 
it so long as it is in its natural banks. Complete improvement is possible only 
with complete control. That is only possible by levees. 

With regard to the specific way in which levees are made useful, I may illus¬ 
trate by the practice in sewer constructions. Where the river makes a sharp 
bend at high water when it is well out of the banks, the fall across the point is 
equivalent to the fall around the bend. Therefore the rate of the fall is very 
much greater across the point. The result is that a greater or less amount leaves 
the channel at right angles and flows across the point. If you try to make a 
junction of a branch sewer w-ith the main at right angles you will have consider¬ 
able trouble. They do it effectually by bringing the joint in at an acute angle. 
If water flowing squarely into a sewer will obstruct it, why would it not do the 
same thing in a river? There is only one way to keep it from flowing in and out 
of the river, and that is to build a levee. The water does harm when it comes 
out, and it does harm w T hen it goes in. 

The Chairman. I suppose the most important place is the middle of the levee 
where the water goes out, and returns in the same place. 

Captain Leach. Yes, sir. I think the levee should be made to follow the con¬ 
volutions of the river as closely as the nature of the ground will permit. If they 
could be built at a uniform distance, a mile apart the w^hole length of the river, 
the conditions wmuld be the most perfect that could be hoped for. If that is 
impossible, then the next best thing is to build them as nearly at a uniform dis¬ 
tance apart as can be done. 

STATEMENT OF CAPT. DAN C. KINGMAN. 

Capt. Dan C. Kingman, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, in charge of the 
fourth district of the Mississippi River, appeared before the committee. 

The Chairman. How long have you been in charge of the fourth district? 

Captain Kingman. About three years and a half. 

The Chairman. Please state your knowledge of the Mississippi River and its 
overflows, in regard to navigation. 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 69 


Captain Kingman. The present discussion in regard to the Mississippi River 
has been reiative to the effect of outlets on flood heights, and I have here a 
logiaph which shows what outlets actually do to the river by showing 
m lat tne cievasses which have taken place during this last flood have done to 
io nooa heights. I have here gauges at some six or seven points in my district 
[indicating on map]. This black line represents the gauge heights at Carroll- 
,-tins [indicating] at Bayou Sara; this [indicating] represents that at Red 
Rner Landing; this [indicating] is Natchez; this [indicating] is St. Joseph. 
The next gauge would be at Vicksburg, which is above my district. 

These little squares here [indicating] represents a half day. This [indica¬ 
ting] represents one-tenth of a foot. Starting in here on the 1st of March and 
taking this gauge-reading at the next half day, I indicate the rise or the fall, 
and in this way the shape of flood wave is shown graphically by the curve that 
lesults from the union of all of [indicating] these points. It is the line that 
w ould be marked by a pointer which moved over two of these squares each 
day and also moved up or down one of these little squares for each tenth of a 
foot that the river rose or fell. 


The river was at high stage on the 1st of March; about 14f feet at New 
Orleans, and at a corresponding height at the points above, and it continued 
to discharge at a very rapid rate the water that came down from above. The 
discharge amounted to 1,280,000 cubic feet per second at New Orleans on the 
11th and 12tli of March. 

Up to that time no breaks had occurred. At that time a break occurred a 
little above College Point, at a plantation called Nita. This break was due 
to a rice flume, a cut made through the levee to admit water to the fields for 
the purpose of irrigation; this box or sluice had gates in it, by means of which 
the water could be admitted to or excluded from the fields. 1 It was a timber 

affair and the pressure of the water forced the water around and under it 

and the box was “ blown out,” thus creating an opening which soon became a 
crevasse. 

The Chairman. Do the people up and down these levees have a right to put 
in chutes and all that sort of thing? 

Captain Kingman. Yes, sir; except in levees constructed by the United 
States, or unless there is a local parish law to the contrary. When they put 
them in they have to get authority from what would correspond to authori¬ 
ties of the county up here—the police jury, as it is called down there. 

Senator Washburn. Are they in the habit of doing that to a great extent? 

Captain Kingman. Yes, sir; hundreds of them. It is only in the rice- 

producing districts, however. 

The Nita crevasse enlarged very rapidly. After it had been running for 
eight or ten days we measured the discharge and it was 90,000 cubic feet per 
second, the crevasse being about 000 feet wide, with an average depth of 15 
feet. The water flowed out with great velocity in a fan-shaped body and inun¬ 
dated a great area of country. The crevasse increased in width in spite of all 
efforts to restrain it by driving piles and putting down a mattress. Now it is 
3,000 feet wide and 15 feet deep, discharging 400,000 cubic feet a second, or 
about one-half as much water as is now passing by New Orleans. Fine brick 
houses have been swept away and obliterated by this crevasse. So large an 
outlet as this ought to have produced a very marked effect on the river. If 
any outlet could do any good surely this one, discharging 400,000 cubic feet 
per second, ought to produce great relief. 

Senator Washburn. What becomes of the water? 

Captain Kingman. It flows out across the country downward and eastward 
until it strikes the old Bonnet Carre Channel and there the ridge formed by 
that crevasse prevents it from flowing down any farther. It goes across the 
country to Lake Pontchartrain, and the stream is 20 miles wide there. The 
track of the Illinois Central Railroad is under water for many miles, and that 
road can not now send trains to New Orleans. The water then flows through 
Lake Pontchartrain and passes out through the Chef Menteur, the Rigolets, 
and through the other outlets of the lake, and you can see the yellow water 
going out through the Rigolets far into Lake Borgne. Clear out into Mississippi 
Sound can be seen Mississippi water instead of the green salt water which is 
ordinarily seen there. 

On the College Point gauge there was a fall up to the time the general fall 
set in of about a foot and a half. That is all the relief that place got in the 
way of a direct fall. At New Orleans there has been a fall from the highest 
noint until the final fall set in, of about a foot. The extreme height was 16 feet 


70 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


on the Carrollton gauge, and a foot was the extreme oscillation. The discharge 
through this crevasse has been shown to be nearly equal to one-lialf the volume 
of water now passing New Orleans. If we take out one-third of the water, 
we ought, if the conditions remained the same, to reduce the gauge height 
one-third. Therefore the Carrollton gauge ought to have gone down to about 
104 feet, but it actually went down to about 15 feet. 

Senator Gibson. From 16 feet? 

Captain Kingman. Yes, sir; until the final fall set in, due to some other 
causes. Therefore the relief from this was very slight. When we go up to 
Plaquemine, which is 50 miles above the crevasse, and compare the hydrograph 
with all the stations above, we see that there has been no effect from that 
crevasse. 

The hydrograph at Bayou Sara and Red River correspond exactly. They 
preserve their own shape up to the 21st of April, when the crevasse occurred 
up there. We had there the Preston, Taylor, the Fannie Riche, the old Mor- 
ganza and the new Morganza breaks, the Raccourci, and two or three others. 
These crevasses occurred by the water overtopping the levee. For 25 or 30 
miles the levees had been raised. We fought the rising water until the levees 
had been raised 2 or 3 feet above the crown, and the water kept pace with us. 
Then a severe storm came and the waves swept volumes of water over the 
levees, so that men were driven away from their work. Then the sand bags 
and planks which had been put on it yielded and broke and were carried away. 
None of the levees in those places broke from any other cause than simply 
by being overwhelmed by the water. 

Senator Gibson. You stated that at Plaquemine, which is only 50 miles above 
the Nita Crevasse, there was no change? 

Captain Kingman. No, sir; no change at all due to this crevasse: though 
the several crevasses I have just mentioned, and with an aggregate discharge 
two or three days after they broke of about 237,000 cubic feet a second, being 
above Plaquemine, did produce some effect. They were all in there together 
'within 10 or 12 miles, and the fall at Bayou Sara was about a foot in less than 
a day. They caused at the mouth of Red River the first day a fall of 2 or 3 
inches, and in three or four days it amounted to about a foot. After that the 
fall was just simply that which was due to the fall of the river above. These 
several crevasses between Bayou Sara and the mouth of the Red River gave a 
discharge of 237,000 feet per second. They gave more than that finally because 
they got larger, but I give this discharge so as to compare it with the effect that 
was produced at that time. Between Red River landing and Natchez there were 
two small crevasses, the discharge of which I have not got yet. I had them 
measured, but have not received the measurements yet. As near as I can tell, 
their discharge must have been about 20,000 cubic feet a second. There was 
rather an abrupt fall at Natchez of about 4 or 5 inches, evidently due to that 
crevasse, and also due to another crevasse which occurred almost opposite 
Natchez, in Lake Concordia, which must have given a greater discharge. These 
crevasses caused an abrupt fall of 4 or 5 inches at Natch.*'. At St. -Toe, a com¬ 
paratively short distance above Natchez, there is absolute .■; no abnormal change 
in the hydrograph, and no fall due to crevasses occurred there at all. The river 
there takes its fall naturally, due to the natural fall coming down the river from 
above. 

Senator Gibson. How many miles up is St. Joe? 

Captain Kingman. I do not know (referring to map). Here is Natchez and 
here is St. Joe. I should say about 50 miles; about the same as Plaquemine 
was above the Nita. Down below the city there were a good many small cre¬ 
vasses, probably twelve or fourteen in all. They have all been closed but one, 
and in the aggregate their discharge might have amounted to 20,000 or 30,000 
feet a second; but as they only stood open two or three days, and the people 
began to close them right away, and as they have since been "dosed, their effect 
is insignificant, and can not be traced on the hydrograph at all. 

Now, to show what produced this remarkably high water below the mouth of 
the Red River, for it was remarkably high water : The Morganza levee had been 
built a foot and a half above high water of 1882. and the water of this year 
would have gone over the top of that levee from 6 to 18 inches in depth 
if it had not been for the work we built on the crown. So that at Morganza. 
right at that particular bend, the extreme high water must have been from 2 to 
24 feet above the high water of 1882. We have got the high-water marks of this 
year, but when I was up there the 1882 marks were so far under water that we 
could not find them. At New Texas we had better luck. We found them 10 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


71 


inches below the high water of this year. At Baton Rouge the river was 5 
inches above 1882, if I remember right. I talked with a good many of the inhab¬ 
itants of the valley—the oldest inhabitants probably—and they all admitted 
that they had never seen any water that approached the present water in height. 
1 hey pointed to some of their old marks—trees, old levees, etc.—then sub¬ 
merged, which they said they had never known to be under water before. It 
was certainly the highest water below Red River that has been there within 
historic times. 

On the 1st of March, before the levees had broken in Arkansas, north Louisi¬ 
ana, and Mississippi, the Atchafalaya at its head, was about 6 or 8 inches lower 
than the Mississippi River at Red River Landing, and a good current was flow¬ 
ing from the Mississippi out into the Atchafalaya—not a very large discharge, 
but quite a considerable amount of water—and doubtless the Atchafalaya was 
affording some relief to the Mississippi. .This continued until about the middle 
of March. Then the advance of the crevasse water that found its way down the 
Tensas began to appear below the mouth of Red River. It filled up the Atcha¬ 
falaya and in a few days brought it above the level of the Mississippi, and the 
water began to return to this river. The inlet extended all the way from the 
Bougere Swamp down to the mouth of Red River. It was practically impossible 
to measure the amount of water coming out that way, because it flowed through 
the woods for miles and miles, 'and you could see the nearly clear crevasse 
'water extending out 800 or 900 feet from the bank and pushing the Mississippi 
water towards the other side of the river. The effect seemed to retard rather 
than accelerate the current of the river. That is what caused the high water 
there. 

The Atchafalaya has been carrying off an immense amount of water. The 
last discharge that we had measured was taken there on about the 1st of May. 
The Atchafalaya was then carrying nearly 5,000 cubic feet a second over the 
dams that we put in. It was not required when we put the dams in that they 
should permit the passage of over 200,000 cubic feet a second; and they would 
do this with a velocity of 4 feet a second. Now there is a velocity over the dam 
of about 9. The velocity is so great that steamboats can hardly stem it. In 
fact, some good steamboats have been forced to make two or three attempts 
before they could pass through that portion of the channel. A great many of the 
levees down below have given way, and the Atchafalaya is spread out right and 
left, and covers the country down below Simmsport. There is no Red River 
water passing down the Atchafalaya at its head now. The Red River begins 
to show itself in the river near Simmsport, 6 miles from the head. 

Senator Gibson. Does the Red River go on the north side of Turnbulls Island 
now ? 

Captain Kingman. There has been a channel there always—a clear and well- 
defined channel—but not quite as deep a channel as on the south side. 

Senator Gibson. It was thought that the sills would turn it around. 

Captain Kingman. No, sir. They were placed about G miles down the Atcha¬ 
falaya, and had no effect upon the water of the Red River. A sill was built last 
fall to connect Turnbulls Island to the main line, between the old mouth of Red 
River and the head of the Atchafalaya. A dam is to be placed upon this sill, 
and when the dam is put in there it will doubtless cause the river in low stages 
to pass around the north side of the island. 

Senator Gibson. Now, while there were 500,000 cubic feet per second going out 
the Atchafalaya, how much was going down the Mississippi? That was all 
Mississippi water? 

Captain Kingman. Pretty much. It did not come directly out of the Missis¬ 
sippi, but it was all crevasse water. There was about 1,450,000 cubic feet a 
second going down the Mississippi below Red River Landing at this time—that 
is, in round numbers. 

The Chairman. What is your conclusion about the outlet system at Lake 
Borgne? 

Captain Kingman. It would be a disappointment. It would not afford the 
relief which is counted on; it would be an entire failure as a means of relief 
from overflow. If it did any good at all, temporarily, it might do good from the 
outlet down to the mouth of the river, where there is no land of any particular 
value. A narrow strip of land runs along the river from Lake Borgne to the 
forts, which is about as liable to overflow from the back water as it is from the 
front water, and this danger would be increased rather than diminished by 
the discharge of the Mississippi through the outlet above it. Finally, I do not 
see why there should be any more relief at New Orleans from this Lake Borgne 


72 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


outlet than there was at Plaquemine from the Nita Crevasse. I think that we 
have an absolute demonstration of what an outlet will do. Here is a crevasse 
which is now flowing, and this is what is has done. Below the crevasse it has 
afforded a little relief, but nothing like commensurate with the amount of water 
taken out, and above the crevasse it has afforded no relief at all. 

Senator Washburn. Do you not think the Atchafalaya has given relief? 

Captain Kingman. I think it has, yes, sir; but I think it has done so 
because the condition of the Mississippi River near the mouth of Red River is 
an abnormal one. The Atchafalaya has been there so long that the river has 
adapted itself to that condition. Now, the Mississippi River flows in a channel 
of its own formation, and if you were to compare a map of the river of fifty 
years ago with the map of the present day you would find that the channel of 
the Mississippi is entirely different. If it occupies the same channel now that 
it did then it would most likely be because it had gone away and come back 
again, except at the lower end of the river, where the changes in the channel 
are less rapid. This channel has a certain size. It is of a size sufficient to 
carry its average flood discharge. Whenever it has to carry a discharge which 
is greater than the average discharge it is overtaxed. If it had only to carry 
half the water it does now it would have only half its present capacity of 
channel. 

The Chairman. Was not the channel of the Atchafalaya dry in 1840? 

Captain Kingman. It can not be said to have been dry; it had a very much 
less capacity of discharge then than it has now. I think in 1830 the State 
removed, or partially removed, the raft in the Atchafalaya, which was situated 
from 12 to 20 miles below its head. This was a mass of trees, logs, and drift. 
It was partially floating and the water ran under and through it, but while it 
greatly diminished it did not absolutely stop the discharge down the Atchafalaya. 
Old people living on the Atchafalaya have told me that at the head of the river 
they crossed in low water on a single fence rail at a place where it is now 1,000 
feet wide and 100 feet deep. 

The Chairman. It has been making an outlet of itself? 

Captain Kingman. Yes, sir; it is a case different from any other of the outlets 
on the Mississippi. My own idea is that the Atchafalaya is not a natural outlet 
of the Mississippi. It is not a part of the delta proper. I think there were 
originally three independent rivers flowing into the Gulf, namely, the Red River, 
which reached the Gulf through the Teche; the Black River, which flowed 
through the Atchafalaya, and the Mississippi River. Those three rivers flowed 
in their own separate channels. In the course of time the Red River obstructed 
its own channel near the head of what is now the Teche; its water was forced 
north of the Avoyelles prairie till it found its way into the open channel of the 
Black River. The Red River thus became a tributary of the Black River. The 
Red River continued to be a raft maker, and in time it obstructed the channel 
of the Black, or what is now called the Atchafalaya. At this time the Missis¬ 
sippi River caved in to the Black River at a point below its junction with the 
Red, and both of the rivers became tributaries of the Mississippi, and would 
have remained so if new conditions had not been set up by the removal of the 
Atchafalaya raft. 

The Chairman. These rivers are tributaries to the Mississippi, but at a cer¬ 
tain stage of water the Mississippi becomes tributary to them? 

Captain Kingman. Yes, sir. The Red River flows now, since the raft has 
been removed out of the Atchafalaya, down the Atchafalaya to the Gulf. The 
Mississippi occupies its own channel. They are connected by Old River like the 
Siamese twins. If the water in the two rivers is of the same height there is no 
circulation. If one is higher than the other the current is from the higher to the 
lower. If the Red is the higher, then its water divides and part goes down the 
Atchafalaya and the rest goes out to the Mississippi. If the other condition 
prevails, then all the Red River goes down the Atchafalaya and a part of the 
Mississippi goes over until it raises up the Atchafalaya enough to establish a 
condition of equilibrium, and so the water flows. That is the reason that the 
Atchafalaya does not close up, because it always has the Red River to act 
upon it. Sometimes it has the Mississippi. 

Senator Gibson. It is both an outlet and an inlet? 

Captain Kingman. It is not exactly an inlet. The Atchafalaya does not flow 
into the Mississippi. 

The Chairman. Did it never flow into the Mississippi? 

Captain Kingman. No, sir; it never was a tributary to the Mississippi. I 
think it was the lower half of Black River. It was not a part of the delta of 
the Mississippi. Its banks are a black, clayey deposit, and upon that is found 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


73 


a red deposit, and upon that it is sandy. It looks like the work of the Black 
River and then of the Red and Black combined, but it is clearly an independent 
river by itself, with this accidental connection between it and another river. It 
always has the Red River to flow down, and it is no more likely to deteriorate 
than if the Mississippi was not there. That is the reason it does not fill up like 
the other outlets. 

The Chairman. Are you familiar with the methods of the Mississippi River 
Commission in improving the Mississippi River for navigation? 

Captain Kingman. No, sir; not very familiar. My district only goes up as 
far as Vicksburg. There have been no channel improvements in my district, so 
that what I know of the channel works has been only what I saw in passing over 
the river, or what I read about them in the annual reports. All the work I 
have done has been local, such as at the mouth of the Red River, New Orleans 
Harbor, and the construction and maintenance of levees. 

The Chairman. In your district, as between levees and the outlet system, you 
have no doubt? 

Captain Kingman. I have not a particle of doubt. 

The Chairman. Suppose you drop all considerations of overflows and regard 
navigation alone, how then? 

Captain Kingman. I should consider that the levee is a very important means 
of improving navigation, and I can give an instance. The Morganza crevasse 
was caused by a break that occurred in 1874. It remained open as a crevasse 
practically until closed in the winter of 1886 and 1887, a period of about twelve 
years. It has a deep bend there and plenty of water, and there had been no 
trouble with the navigation until after the crevasse was formed. After the 
crevasse occurred the navigation became worse and worse, and steamboat men 
told me they hated to run that bend at night, particularly in low water, not 
when the water was running out. When the water was running out there would 
seem to be danger of being drawn into the crevasse. The steamboat men 
dreaded it at low water because the sand-bar, or tongue of land opposite this 
bend, had extended so far over into the bend that there was hardly room enough 
for two large steamboats to pass there. The crevasse was closed, jointly by the 
Commission and by the State, in the winter of 1886 and 1887. Since then the 
navigation has steadily improved until now it is as good as it ever was. The 
current is quite regular. There is ample room now, and steamboat men have 
spoken to me repeated^ this year about the great improvement which has taken 
place in Morganza Bend since the crevasse has been closed. There is an actual 
case where the building of a levee made bad navigation good. 

Of course, at Bonnet Carre there was a crevasse open for a long time, but the 
river was so deep at that place, there being no abrupt bend, that the navigation 
did not get bad. It certainly got worse than it was, but to reduce a channel 
from 60 feet down to 40 feet, when the boats draw but 10 or 12 feet, does not 
make any difference, so that a sounding line would be required to show that 
the channel depth had deteriorated and afterwards been restored. Of course, 
there was not enough change there for steamboat men to notice. This Mor¬ 
ganza case is a good one in point. 

The Chairman. Where does the Morganza water go? 

Captain Kingman. It passes down through what is known as the Choctaw 
Swamp, until it comes down nearly back of the town of Plaquemine, and there 
it finds its way through an intricate system of channels into Grand Lake, and 
ultimately goes out in Lower Atchafalaya Bay. 

Senator Gtbson. How many breaks or crevasses did you have in your district 
during the whole season? 

Captain Kingman. About 32. 

Senator Gibson. How many did you close? 

Captain Kingman. Out of this number we closed about a dozen. 

Senator Gibson. That would leave about 20? 

Captain Kingman. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. How many miles? 

Captain Kingman. A little less than 2 miles would be the total length of 
them. 

Senator Gibson. How many of those crevasses occurred in works built by 
the United States engineers? 

Captain Kingman. If I recollect aright, there was but one; that was the Mor¬ 
ganza. That broke in the manner I have described; the break was right in the 
center of the new Morganza. 

Senator Gibson. How much money would it take to put up these levees and 
raise them to flood heights—that is, to the heights at which you raise them? 


74 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Captain Kingman. I have not made an estimate of what it would cost, but 
I think most of the breaks can be closed right in the throats of the crevasses. 
Where a break is 500 or 250 feet long, to build that short distance and to raise 
it 2 or 3 feet above the general height of the levee would hardly be logical. To 
restore the levees to the condition they were in before the breaks occurred 
would cost $100,000. That is a liberal estimate, and I do not think it would 
cost more than that. 

Captain Leach. I think the whole system can be restored to the condition in 
which it was before this flood occurred by the expenditure of in the neighbor¬ 
hood of $100,000. 

Captain Kingman. It would cost in the neighborhood of $5,000,000 to make 
them perfect in my district—that is, to put them up 5 feet higher than they now 
are from Vicksburg to the mouth of Red River, 4 feet from there to New 
Orleans, and 3 feet from there to the Forts ; and to give them, at the same time, 
the proper slopes. 

Senator Gibson. Your district would have to be levied on both sides? 

Captain Kingman. Yes, sir; from Baton Rouge down. That is more than 
half the distance. 

Senator Gibson. Have you ever been to Holland? 

Captain Kingman. No, sir. 

Senator Gibson. On the River Rhine or the Danube? 

Captain Kingman. No, sir. 


“THE LEVEE THEORY ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER,” AN INFOR¬ 
MAL DISCUSSION AT THE ANNUAL CONVENTION, AMERICAN 
SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, JUNE 10, 1903. 

B. M. IIarrod, Past President American Society of Civil Engineers. The ques¬ 
tion whether a theory is justified by experience is hardly fair, when its applica¬ 
tion is quite incomplete, as is the case on the lower Mississippi River, where the 
levees have as yet neither the grade, section, nor extension considered neces¬ 
sary, and the present contents in cubic yards are not more than two-thirds of 
the quantity required by the adopted standard. 

The discussion of the subject, however, is opportune, as a recent flood of mag¬ 
nitude has excited interest and afforded much information. 

The justification of the “ Levee Theory ” is involved in such changes in the 
bed of the river, as a flood channel, as result either from natural causes or 
from an increase of the discharge by levees during more than bank-full stages. 
If the bed is rising, or the capacity is otherwise reduced by natural and con¬ 
tinuing conditions, the completion of a levee system will be prolonged, if not 
made interminable. If the bed is not rising and the waterway is maintained 
or improved, either by deepening or widening by the discharge of a larger 
volume at higher velocity, then the problem, though large, is simple and certain. 

The Mississippi River Commission, therefore, has given careful investigation 
to such changes since its appointment. Local and seasonal movements are con¬ 
stantly going on. At certain stages bars build up and pools scour. At others 
this process is reversed. Besides this, there is a general downstream and 
snake-like movement of the sinuosities of the stream. The current binds against 
the upper and is slack against the lower side of points. Therefore the points, 
with their opposite concavities, move slowly downward from erosion on the 
upper and accretion on the lower side. The location of the pools and bars has 
a definite relation to the curvature of the bends, the former lying in the con¬ 
cavities, alternately on the right and left banks, and the bars at the nodes or 
revison points between the pools. Hence, as the bends move downstream the 
bars and pools move with them. Again, as a result of caving on one and accre¬ 
tion on the opposite bank, the river shifts sideways. Instances are not wanting 
where this movement has amounted to its entire width in fifteen or twenty 
years. 

It is evident that with these unstable conditions but little can be learned from 
isolated on scattered surroundings. A cross-section line over a bar may, in a few 
years, lie through a pool, or the river may have slipped to one side, leaving it 
on dry ground. 



RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


75 


0 * °:’ ls 188 1 ' 3 882, and 1883 the Commission made an exact and detailed 
of the river from Cairo to the Head of the Passes, a distance of 1,063 
qmihwSsii' 1 I oioss sections averaging about four to the mile, and seventy-five 

nn?i u !r5f +° n ! e ‘ T 1 bere was 110 better way of investigating this difficult 
and nnpoI'tiuit quest urn than by repeating the survey. This was done in 1894, 

’ a ! ld atter an interval of thirteen years, over that part of the river 

u ieie the levee system had been most improved during the interval, from the 
mouth ot W lute River to Donaldsonville, La., a distance of 472 miles. This 
second survey was made in greater detail, in order that it might better serve for 
future comparisons. 

Tlieie is a limit to the value of the results obtainable even by this exhaustive 
pi o< ess, ot which the Commission was aware, but no better method seemed 
a\a liable. A comparison between the two surveys would be conclusive in pro¬ 
portion to the similarity of the stage conditions preceding them and prevailing 
v bile the parties were in the field. Each survey was of such magnitude and 
detail as to require several months, and it was improbable that there would be a 
close repetition of the conditions of the first during the second. 

Both surveys and the analysis of their elements were made under the charge 
of J. A. Ockerson, member American Society of Civil Engineers, and his detailed 
report on them is found in the reports of the Mississippi River Commission for 
1896 and 1897. published, respectively, in the sixth and fifth parts of the reports 
of the Chief of Engineers for those years. 

The following conclusions from his study of the conditions are well founded: 

The differences found in these two surveys do not necessarily represent all the 
changes or the resultant of all the changes that may have taken place between 
them. During this time the conditions of the river bed may have varied in both 
directions from those found in either survey. They should, however, indicate 
any trend, or persistent and progressive change that has taken place. This gen¬ 
eral tendency seems to be toward a channel more uniform in depth and of 
greater capacity. 

Table No. 1 gives the results from the Arkansas River to Vicksburg, 200 miles. 


Table No. 1. — Relation of elements in 189 // to those in 1881-82. 



Low 

water. 

Medium 

stage. 

Bank-full. 

Width.......... 

Per cent. 
+3.6 
-6 
-3.6 

Per cent. 
+8.3 
-6 
+2.7 

Per cent. 
-0.08 
+4.5 
+3.1 
, +3.25 

Mean depth..... 

Area_ .. _____ _ 

Hydraulic radius_ ___ 





A composite comparative diagram of the sections in this part of the survey is 
shown in fig. 1. 


MEAN SECTIONS, 

ARKANSAS RIVER TO VICKSBURG. 

t_i_i_i_> 

Vertical Scale 0 20 40 60 80 Feet 



The mean of the results from Vicksburg to Donaldsonville, La., 272 miles, is 
given in Table No. 2. 

I. . : « p j : •! i I , . 

































76 RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 

Table No. 2.— Relation of elements in survey of 1895-96 to those in 1882-83. 



Low 

water. 

Medium 

stage. 

Bank-full. 

Width_______ 

Per cent. 
+3.8 
-5.9 
-3.8 

Per cent. 
+3.8 
-8.1 
-0.8 

Per cent. 
+7.5 
-8.9 
+1.4 

Mean depth...... ... 

Area..... 



The conditions under which the two surveys from Vicksburg to Donaldson- 
ville were made were so different as to give abnormal results. The first (1882) 
was after the greatest recorded flood and on the rise of the succeeding one, 
which was of considerable magnitude, while the last (1895-96) was preceded by 
two seasons of extreme low water, and a very moderate intermediate flood, 
during which sediment transported from above would be deposited in the lower 
part of the river, particularly below Red River, where a relatively large low- 
water section, flat slopes, and correspondingly small velocities are found. 

A duplication of the survey of 1881 is now being made over that part of the 
river from Cairo to the mouth of the Arkansas, along which the levee system 
has been much extended since 1895. In the future, at propel’ intervals of time, 
similar resurveys will be made over the entire river, until they yield indications 
of a persistent and progressive change. 

It may be assumed that the low-water plane conforms to the shape of the 
river bed, and that any elevation or depression of the latter, as the result either 
of natural causes or of levee building, will be recorded in the low-water gauge 
readings. The improvement of levees during the past twenty years, and their 
effect in increasing the height of floods, has been most marked in the 500 miles 
of river in which are included the gauge stations of Fulton, Memphis, Green¬ 
ville, and Lake Providence. There has, as yet, been no levee building which has 
affected the flood stage at Cairo. The effect on the bed of the river, therefore, 
may be observed by comparing the low-water stages at the points where levee 
improvement has been greatest with those at Cairo where no influence of the 
kind has been felt. 

Prior to 1882 the United States had built no levees, and the insufficient and 
incomplete State levees existing at the time were badly wrecked by the flood of 
that year, which left them in quite an unserviceable condition. 

If the average of the low waters at the points mentioned above, which have 
been selected as fairly representative, for the five years following this disaster 
of 1882 (1883 to 1887) and that of the last five years (1898 to 1902) be com¬ 
pared with the averages of the low waters at Cairo during the same two periods, 
as a standard, there will be observed, during the latter period an average rela¬ 
tive depression of the low-water surface of 0.74 foot at Fulton, 0.68 foot at 
Memphis, 1.60 feet at Greenville, and 1.89 feet at Lake Providence. 

These reductions of the low-water plane are indicative of a depression of the 
bed, and are proportionate to the duration and degree of levee maintenance 
and improvement in the vicinity of the gauge stations mentioned. 

Table No. 3 will make this statement clearer. 

Table No. 3. 


Average low water. 

Cairo. 

Fulton. 

Memphis. 

Green¬ 
ville. . 

Lake 

Provi¬ 

dence. 

1883-1887... 

5.21 

4.50 

3.57 

5.56 

4.04 

1898-1903..... 

5.35 

3.90 

2.03 

4.10 

2.29 

Difference in averages__ 

Reduction below Cairo, 1898-1903 ... 

+0.14 

-0.80 
0.74 

-0.54 
0.68 

-1.46 

1.60 

-1.75 

1.89 


It was observed, in the great flood of 1897, that: 

“ The first gauge below Red River to exceed its previous record was the 
lowest one on the river, at Fort Jackson. The next was the Carrollton gauge, 
and so on up to Red River, where the gauge did not exceed its previous record 
until sixteen days after the Carrollton gauge had done so. When the Carroll- 






























RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 77 

ton gauge had reached its previous maximum, that at Red River still lacked 
1.6 feet of the height which had produced that maximum.” 

The same prematurity of rise at the lower-gauge ‘stations occurred during 
the present year. In a discussion of this phenomenon by Major Derby, mem¬ 
ber American Society of Civil Engineers, in the Report of the Mississippi River 
Commission for 1900, it was considered as due to one of only three causes: 
(1) A raising of the bed of the river below Carrollton; (2) the effect of cre¬ 
vasses and their closure, or (3) an increase of the carrying capacity of the 
channel between Red River and Carrollton by which the resistance to dis¬ 
charge and the slope over that 200 miles of river was reduced. His analysis 
of flood waves ranging in height, at Red River, from 19.3 to 45.2 feet between 
the years 1872 and 1899, discredited the first two causes and led to the conclu¬ 
sion that the discharge capacity of this part of the river had been increased 
during the period under consideration. 

Besides these extended comparative observations, others of a more local 
character have been made in connection with crevasses or temporary outlets, 
at Malone’s, Riverton, Bolivar, Mound Place, Morganza, Bonnet Carre, and 
Cubitt’s Gap. Whenever the resurvey was made after the occurrence of an 
outlet it showed a reduction of the cross-sectional area below. When made 
after closure, an enlargement has been observed. 

When, in 1880, the river was first subjected to continuous observation, the 
levee system was in its infancy; some basins were entirely unleveed, and such 
crude levees as existed were breached at many places by every high water. 
It was then noticed that the rise and fall was very different at different 
places. When classified, the greater annual oscillations, amounting generally 
to about 45 feet, were found at or near the mouths of the tributaries—the 
Ohio, St. Francis, Arkansas, Yazoo, and Red rivers—while the lesser ones, 
averaging only about 35 feet, were observed at intermediate points along the 
fronts of the great basins drained by these tributaries, as at Fulton, Memphis, 
Greenville, Lake Providence, and St. Joseph. 

The gauge readings, when plotted, showed a smooth and regular high-water 
slope, while that of the low-water slope was quite irregular, being depressed 
about the junctions of the tributaries, and raised between them or along the 
basin fronts. A diagram of the high water of 1S82 and the low water of 1883, 
fig. 2, shows that these differences in annual oscillation were caused not by 
the rise but by the excess of fall at the tributaries over that on the bars of the 
elevated bed of the river between them. 

It was further indicated by the discharge observations taken at high waters 
at the places near the tributaries and at the others along the basin fronts that 
the discharges at the former were about 1,500,000 cubic feet per second, and 
exceeded those at the latter, or intermediate points along the basin fronts, by 
several hundred thousand feet. 

This difference, from a quarter to a half million feet at times, had escaped 
from the river bed over the banks into the basins, and was returned to the 
main river below through the tributaries, which are the outfalls for their nor¬ 
mal and overflow drainage. Where the river discharged between banks the 
entire flood volume, the bed was deepened; and where it discharged only two- 
thirds of that volume the bed was shallowed. The depletion of a thousand 
floods by overflow had impressed this shape upon the bed. 

A part of the “ Levee Theory ” is that the escape of flood water from the river 
along the fronts into the adjacent basins caused the elevation of bed that 
existed, as evidenced by the low-water slope; and that, when this is prevented 
by levees and the discharge confined, a primary effect will be the reproduction, 
in the high-water slope, of those elevations which have been observed and 
described in the low. This has already been brought about by the extension 
and improvement of levees, and is measured by the excessive height of recent 
floods at points situated along the middle of basin fronts, as Memphis or Lake 
Providence. It will be observed that an equal increase of heights has not 
occurred at the mouths of the tributaries. 

Another part of the “ levee theory ” is that a reversal, or removal, of the 
conditions which have contracted one part of the waterway and relatively 
enlarged another, of the same river, will remove these differentiations, and that 
with a uniform discharge for each stage, from Cairo to the sea, affected only 
bv increments from the normal drainage of the basins, through an erosible bed 
which the river has molded to its needs, these irregularities of slope, velocity, 
and section will disappear, and that there will result a regular and substantially 


78 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


parallel slope curve flattened a little by each increment of volume from a tribu¬ 
tary, until Red River is reached, and from thence down the slopes at all stages 
will converge to sea level. 

If the flow is as great along the basin fronts as at the tributaries, why should 

g 

O 

v . i , in 

HIGH-WATER SLOPE OF 1882, AND LOW-WATER SLOPE OF 1883. % 

o 

$ 



not the channel capacity of this strictly sedimentary stream be as great at one 
place as at another? 

The condition in which the Commission found the river, and of which a 
description has been attempted, is the result of many centuries of alternation of 




















































































































RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


79 


e iami e l depletion and enlargement at every flood stage. It is not to be expected 
t lat an accumulation of deposit, almost geological in its age and its mass, will 
be iemo\ed by five or ten years of levee improvement, or by a few great floods 
occurring at intervals of five or six years. But, with the force and time we 
lia^e on hand, the result is not in doubt. The evidence of a start in this direc¬ 
tion is given in a previous part of this discussion. 

I he l esult of all observations seems to show a general tendency to an enlarge¬ 
ment oi the stream, that its capacity for flood discharge has been more than 
maintained, and that the apprehension of its deterioration, from natural causes, 
01 ii° n i ee building, may be dismissed as, at least, unproved, if not disproved. 

Consideration must also be given to the floods of the future, which will seek 
an outfall through the channel below Cairo. Will they be of greater volume 
than those of the past: They come from four sources, the upper Mississippi, 
the Ohio and the Missouri watersheds, and from the tributaries of the main 
trunk below Cairo. It may generally be stated that, when the first three form 
a combination which causes a dangerous stage on the lower Mississippi, about 
two-thirds of the discharge, or 1,000,000 cubic feet per second, is contributed by 
the Ohio. This is the controlling factor in great floods. 

Y\ hile the relation between deforesting and precipitation is assumed rather 
than established, there is no doubt that the processes of clearing, draining, and 
cultivating may materially affect the distribution of the run-off, delivering to 
the streams of outfall a larger share in a shorter time, and tending to higher 
high waters and lower waters. Under certain topographic conditions, these 
results may be limited and even reversed. It is, therefore, an important part 
of this discussion to consider the bearing which the conditions of the four 
sources of supply have had,‘and will have, upon the high waters of the lower 
Mississippi. 

It seems probable that the future changes in the flood conditions in the upper 
Mississippi Basin will be slight. The forests, or those having commercial value, 
have been very largely cut down, cultivation under improved methods is already 
greatly extended, the reservoir system may be increased, and while the pro¬ 
jected discharge of the Chicago Canal, constituting about one-tenth of the low- 
water discharge of the river below Cairo may be appreciably beneficial to low- 
water navigation, its contribution of about one-half of 1 per cent to the flood 
volume is too small for consideration. 

It is unfortunate that the records do not extend far enough back to give a life 
history of these tributary rivers, the gauges having generally been established 
within the last thirty years. Fortunately, since it bears on the most impor¬ 
tant flood factor, Cincinnati is an exception, having a continuous record of 
forty-five years. An examination of this shows that, if this period is divided in 
halves, the average of flood heights on the Ohio in the first half is 48.80, and in 
the second 52.37 feet. If, however, it is divided into thirds, they give the follow¬ 
ing relation of averages for the three periods: 48.51, 52.57, and 50.69 feet. Fol¬ 
low water the average result for half periods is 3.80 and 3.86 feet, and for 
thirds is 3.83, 3.60, and 4.06 feet. It does not appear, therefore, that on the 
Ohio River, for the last forty-five years, there has been a progressive change to 
higher high waters to lower low waters (although the processes to which such 
a result is usually attributed have presumably continued), but rather that some 
conservative or restorative influence has been in operation. 

The high and low waters at Cincinnati for the period under consideration are 
shown in fig. 3. 

The physical conditions in the basin of the Missouri are materially different 
from those in the Ohio. Except about the headwaters, it is a region of gentler 
Slopes, largely without forests. Its progressive occupation and cultivation will 
be accompanied by plowing and planting surfaces which are now smooth and 
barren, and probably by a great development of reservoir building for irrigation. 
The tendency of these processes should be to check the rapidity with which its 
floods are discharged, and render less likely their coincidence with those of the 
Ohio, which generally culminate in February or March. 

The tributaries below Cairo may be grouped together for consideration. 
While some of them head in arid region's similar to those drained by the Mis¬ 
souri, they generally flow through flat alluvial lands, where drainage is and 
always will be slow, and where the prevailing forests will be gradually replaced 
by a* cultivation which will not materially hasten the run-off. With overflow 
excluded from the basins, there is no reason apparent why the natural discharge 
of these drainage systems should be materially increased in the future. 

If not levees, what then? Reservoirs, or outlets? 


80 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 



rrnTrm 




H 


The tendency of any extension of a reservoir system on the upper Mississippi 
or' Missouri would be to abate floods on the lower Mississippi, but probably to a 
degree hardly appreciable. Such a system on the Ohio, if practicable, might 

; produce more important results, 
o o © o © o But the late Milnor Roberts, 

t past president American Society 
\ of Civil Engineers, closed this 
part of the subject forever in his 
( most able report of 1870. 

Outlets have received theo¬ 
retic support in the report of 
Humphreys and Abbot, and of 
the United States Commission 
of Engineers of 1875 for the 
reclamation of the alluvial basin 
• from overflow, but, after a de¬ 
tailed examination, they are unan¬ 
imously : 

“ Forced unwillingly to the 
conclusion that no assistance in 
reclaiming the alluvial region 
from overflow can judiciously be 
anticipated from artificial outlets. 
They are correct in theory, but 
no advantageous sites for their 
construction exist.” 

The views on which these 
theoretical conclusions in favor 
of outlets were based, viz, that 
the bed of the stream was in a 
material so inerosible, and that 
changes in volume and velocity 
w bore so little relation to scour 
g or deposit, that its shape and di- 
£ mensions would not respond to 
these changes, have not been 
upheld by more recent and ex¬ 
haustive observations. These 
show that the bed is in a mate¬ 
rial which is being moved by the 
current from day to day and 
from bar to bar, and that its 
shape and dimensions are the re¬ 
sultants of this force. 

The experience in levee build¬ 
ing is that the limit to which 
the use of the material and meth¬ 
ods of their construction can be 
safely extended has not yet been 
approached. The larger levees, 
which reach, in sloughs or other 
depressions, a height of 30 to 
40 feet, and even more, are gen¬ 
erally considered as among the 
safest. 

Many substitutes and reen¬ 
forcements for the earthen em¬ 
bankment, of various materials 
and construction, wood, stone, 
steel, concrete, etc., have been 
proposed. But when all things 
are considered, including ease of 
construction, economy, and en¬ 
durance, the outlook at present is that a carefully constructed earthen levee 
system, with sufficient grade and section, when properly cared for, presents 
advantages with which competition will always be extremely difficult. 

There are two natural conditions prevailing on the Mississippi below Cairo 























































































































RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


81 


which add materially to the practicability and efficiency of the “ levee system.” 
One is the general presence of Bermuda grass, which grows with closely inter¬ 
woven stems, attached to the ground by root tufts at close intervals, and forms 
a dense sod, presenting great protection against wave wash. The other is the 
high charge of sediment carried by the river at its higher stages. As the water 
seeps into and through the levees, it is filtered, the particles being deposited in 
the interstices of the soil of which it is built. The clear water percolates 
through to the land slope, while its charge of sediment remains and gradually 
diminishes .the leakage. 

The experience concerning the cost of making good the losses sustained by 
the existing levees, from caving banks and breaks from other causes, has been 
collated for the past eight years. It amounts annually, during that period, to a 
little less than 1^ per cent. The losses by the flood of this season and by certain 
important works of renewal now in sight will probably temporarily increase this 
annual cost in the near future. Also, as the levees approach the grade and sec¬ 
tion which it is considered necessary to give them, and their contents per 
linear foot are thus increased, the work of closing any gap that may occur will 
be proportionately greater. On the other hand, the better locations, construc¬ 
tion, and care which are already made possible, to a certain degree, and which 
can in the future be practiced to a still greater extent, from the more liberal 
and regular supply of funds, should tend to a reduction of the annual losses 
from caving banks and the occasional losses from extreme high waters. 

This increase of resources can be expected both from a fuller realization by 
the General Government of the importance of the work which it has undertaken, 
the reclamation from overflow', and the agricultural and commercial develop¬ 
ment of 20,000,000 acres of the most fertile soil, and from the increasing number 
and wealth of the communities now occupying and improving these lands. 

The amount applied to the extension and improvement of the levee system of 
the lower Mississippi in the year 1900 was about $2,901,000. Of this, about 
$1,000,000 was allotted from the appropriation by Congress for the river below 
Cairo, and the remainder was supplied by the levee organizations of the 
riparian States. This is substantially the division of cost which has prevailed 
since the Government has shared in the construction of a levee system. Several 
of these local organizations now feel justified, by their experience with the 
“ levee theory,” to seek legislative authority for an increase of their contribu¬ 
tion by additional taxation and bond issues. 

When the levee system of the lower Mississippi shall have been completed, it 
will still be but an engineering structure, subject to the vicissitudes of time and 
accident. It will need constant care, and occasional renewal of parts. Cre¬ 
vasses will occur as long as trains are derailed, or collide, as ships are wrecked, 
or fireproof buildings are destroyed. A crevasse in the levee of the future will 
be a more serious disaster than in one of the present time, in proportion to its 
greater depth and discharge, and the greater improvements which have devel¬ 
oped under its protection. But this is the case with all of our work, whose 
progress has not been deterred by the greater risks which are necessarily 
assumed in meeting the demands of modern civilization. 

This discussion, already too long, will be closed with a short comparison of 
the floods of 1897 and 1903 and their results. 

The computations of the discharge measurements of the last flood are not yet 
complete, but it is apparent that the maximum discharge of 1897 was slightly 
more than that of 1903. Greater heights were generally reached this year, 
mainly along the fronts of the basins where levees have made the greatest reduc¬ 
tion in the overflow, but not at the mouths of the tributaries. This increased 
height was due both to the extension of levees along hitherto unleveed fronts, 
and to the improvement made in the existing lines since 1897, which enabled 
them to exert more resistance and control. 

The greatest increase of flood height this year was about 3 feet at Memphis, 
where levees have been but recently extended. Nevertheless, there were, in 
1897, between Cairo and New Orleans, a distance of 960 miles, forty-three cre¬ 
vasses, while during the past flood, so great had been the improvement of levees 
in the meantime, there were but six. While the limit of the overflowed area 
has not yet been completely ascertained, it is known to be reduced largely, if 
not quite" in proportion to the lesser number of breaks. 

Table No. 4 gives certain high-water records. In the third column is given a 
standard, adopted provisionally, as the heights which great floods might be 


r and H app —05- 6 



82 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


expected to reach when controlled by levees. The other columns are explained 
sufficiently by their headings. 

The experience of 1903 makes advisable a revision of the provisional standard 
in the vicinity of some of the gauge stations. 


Table No. 4. — High-water records. 


Gauges. 

Miles 

below 

Cairo. 

Stand¬ 
ard high 
water. 

Highest 

before 

1903. 

Highest 
in 1903. 

1903 com¬ 
pared 
with 
previous 
highest. 

1903 com¬ 
pared 
with 
stand¬ 
ard. 

Cairo . 

Miles. 

Feet. 

54.17 

Feet. 

52.17 

Feet. 

50.60 

Feet. 

-1.57 

Feet. 

-3.57 

Columbus. 

21.3 

48.10 

45.58 

44.40 

-1.18 

-3.70 

New Madrid.... 

70.3 

42.90 

41.50 

39.50 

-2.00 

-3.40 

Cottonwood Point ._ _ _. 

122.5 

42.20 

39.35 

40.00 

+- 0. <55 

-2.20 

Fulton.. 

175.4 

40. 40 

38.30 

40.10 

+ 1.80 

-0.30 

Memphis___ 

230.0 

41.60 

37.66 

40.60 

+3.00 

-1.00 

Mhoon_____ 

276.3 

46.20 

41.60 

41.80 

+0.20 

-4.40 

Helena.... 

306.5 

54.10 

51.75 

51.00 

-0.75 

-3.10 

Sunflo wer.... 

352.7 

50.20 

47.17 

48.00 

+0.83 

-2. 20 

White River. 

393.2 

56.40 

52.42 

53.70 

+1.28 

-2.70 

Arkansas City...... 

438.3 

56.30 

51.90 

53.00 

1 +1.10 

-3.30 

Greenville. 

478.3 

50.50 

46.75 

49.10 

+2.35 

-1.40 

Lake Providence. 

542.3 

' 48.00 

' 44.54 

46. 40 

+1.86 

-1.60 

Vicksburg..... 

599.3 

55.00 

52.48 

51.80 

-0.68 

-3.20 

St. Joseph.... 

648.3 

50. 80 

47.85 

48.00 

+0.15 

-2.80 

Natchez..... 

700.3 

54.00 

49.82 

50.40 

+0.58 

-3.60 

Red River Landing... 

765.3 

52.50 

50.20 

50.00 

-0.20 

-2.50 

Bavou Sara... 

799.8 

45.70 

43.70 

43.45 

-0.30 

-2.30 

Baton Rouge.. 

833.3 

43.20 

40.65 

40.00 

-0.65 

-3.20 

Plaquemine .... 

854.1 

38.70 

36.25 

36.10 

-0.15 

-2.60 

Donaldson ville. 

885.4 

34.95 

32.75 

32.10 

—0.55 

-2.75 

College Point..... 

904.5 

29.80 

27.95 

27.80 

-0.15 

-2.00 

Carrollton.... 

957.0 

20.35 

19.17 

19.40 

+0.23 

-0.95 

Fort Jackson. 

1,039.0 

8.00 

7.20 

8.00 

+0.80 

-0.00 



It will be observed that no high water has yet reached the predicted standard. 

The engineers engaged in the reclamation of the valley of the Mississippi 
River from overflow know more about levee building than they have yet had the 
opportunity of putting in practice. They are quite aware of many and much- 
needed improvements, both in their construction and in their care and preserva¬ 
tion. Up to the present time the compelling need has been, and for several 
years will be, continuity of line, higher grades, and standard sections. Those 
used provisionally are everywhere below those considered safe for great floods, 
and the present contents of levees are not more than GO per cent of what is con¬ 
sidered necessary for satisfactory protection. 

Yet behind this partial shelter population has increased, values have risen, 
wealth has accumulated, comfort and culture have developed, and great railroad 
systems have extended at such a rate that it can be said that the reclamation of 
this region is one of the most successful and beneficent public works now in 
progress. 

J. A. Ockersost, member American Society of Civil Engineers (by letter). In 
early days, prior to the advent of the levee system, the steamboat man and the 
passenger going down the Mississippi River saw a narrow strip of cultivated 
land along the immediate banks of the river. They did not realize that for 40 
to GO miles beyond that strip the alluvial basin was practically uninhabited and 
its rich soil untilled. 

They saw the fields covered with water during flood times, to a depth of per¬ 
haps 3 or 4 feet, and very limited areas in certain localities, developed by 
radical changes in the regimen of the river, were known to be above water 
except during extraordinary floods. They did not appreciate the fact that per¬ 
haps 5 miles farther back the water was 10 feet or more in depth, that without 
levees to control the floods these great interior basins could not be inhabited 
or cultivated. 

In the meantime systematic levee work began, and year by year the levees 
are gradually being brought up to such height as will finally effectually carry 
the greatest floods safely to the sea. These same men notice that the flood 
water on the battures and the lands between the levees gradually becomes 
deeper and the levees grow higher, and they conclude that if the levees can 
ever be made to control the floods at all they will ultimately “ reach the tree tops 












































RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 83 

in height. They are fully convinced and most positive in their opinion that 
the increase in flood height is due to the raising of the river bed. 

1 o the engineer it is no surprise that there should be an increase in the 
height of a flood confined between levees from 1 to 5 miles apart over that 
of a flood confined only by the hills that limit the basins with a width of 40 to 
no miles. More than that, the engineer, in the beginning of the work, computed 
the heights which the maximum confined flood would ultimatly reach, and the 
results have shown that his calculations are very near the mark. 

Everyone familiar, even to a slight degree, with the physical characteristics 
of the river, has noticed the extraordinary local changes that occur in brief 
intervals of time. Very few, however, realize the fact that tangible changes 
in the general regimen of the river require long periods of time. 

The belief among laymen that there is a general progressive elevation of the 
bed of the stream going on, which is augmented by levees, is widespread. State¬ 
ments have been made, by those who ought to know better, that the bed of the 
river at New Orleans is higher than the adjacent land, while the fact is that the 
bed is some 200 feet below the land. 

A former Secretary of War, in discussing this question with the writer, stated 
that he proposed to settle the vexing question himself by “ measuring the river 
in several places.” Just what he intended to compare the measurements with, 
or how he proposed to eliminate the effect of purely local changes, does not 
appear. 

The statement that the Mississippi River Commission had already made many 
thousands of such measurements, covering some 425 miles of river, may have 
had something to do with the abandonment of his project. 

Without any preconceived theory to'prove, and with a view of simply ascer¬ 
taining the facts in the case, the writer prepared in L894 a project for. a resur¬ 
vey of the river from the mouth of the Arkansas River to Donaldsonville—a 
distance of 425 miles—and this project was approved by the Mississippi River 
Commission. 

The first general survey had been made, much of it under the personal super¬ 
vision of the writer, some twelve to fifteen years prior to that time. This 
first survey comprised accurate lines of levels, with established bench marks at 
intervals of 3 miles. Each line of soundings across the river (at frequent inter¬ 
vals) had its water-surface elevation determined by levels, hence an accurate 
cross section of the bed could be plotted. Surveys made at the later date, 
referred to the same bench marks and the same datum, gave reliable data from 
which to determine the difference in conditions at the two epochs. 

A careful comparison of the two would, of course,disclose any general changes 
of considerable magnitude in the elevation or capacity of the bed. 

The thousands of cross sections of the two surveys were carefully plotted, 
their respective areas measured, and their mean and maximum depths deter¬ 
mined. Then comparisons were made between individual sections and between 
corresponding groups of sections comprising successive pools and crossings. 
All this entailed an enormous amount of painstaking work, and the conclusions 
are as follows: 

The crests of the low-water bars, as well as the high-water bars, were found 
to be lower.' About half of the total length resurveyed showed a depression of 
the thalweg, and about an equal amount showed a slight elevation, confined 
chiefly to the pools. 

The results reached by this investigation are not as specific as might be 
desired, but it does not seem possible that such great elevations of bed as would 
be required to account for increased flood heights could escape detection. 

Embracing, as it did, a comparison of 2,768 cross sections of the river, together 
with something like 150,000 elevations, it seems to prove beyond a reasonable 
doubt, if any such proof be really needed, that the elevation of a confined flood 
in the Mississippi is not due to the elevation of the bed of the river. 

There is a still more simple proof which should be satisfactory to all, even if 
highly prejudiced against a levee system. 

Gauges are established at intervals along the river, and are connected with 
several permanent bench marks in the immediate vicinity. Frequent inspec¬ 
tions keep the gauge zeros at the same height from year to year. The readings 
are taken by reliable observers, both morning and evening, and a continuous 
record is thus maintained throughout both high and low waters. 

These records show in the most positive way that the low waters of recent 
years are several feet lower than those of earlier years, with equal volume of 
flow and with equal channel depths. 


84 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Only one explanation of this condition is possible. It points unerringly to a 
depression of the bed of the stream, and should effectually set at rest any fears 
that there is such a thing as a tangible progressive elevation of the river bed. 

During the height of the flood of 1903 the Mississippi River Commission 
viewed the river from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico. Anyone who could have 
seen, as they did, hundreds of miles of levee intact, the farmers behind them 
busy plowing and planting, the fruit trees in bloom, the stock fattening on the 
green herbage, would surely have been impressed with the efficacy, the neces¬ 
sity, of levees. 

Add to this the knowledge that the levee system had served to fill with 
thrifty settlers the fertile basin where life without levees would be impossible, 
and it becomes incomprehensible how anyone can oppose the completion of the 
levee system, unless it be on the score of ignorance as to the facts in the case. 

Contrast the peaceful condition of things where levee protection exists with 
the suffering and misery during a flood along the unleveed portions of the river, 
as revealed by a trip along the river during any flood, and no argument is 
needed to demonstrate the wisdom of a perfected levee system. 

That occasional breaks should occur in levees, partially completed as to both 
height and section, is by no means surprising. They are to be expected, and 
they may occur under great stress on rare occasions even in a completed system. 
But the area flooded and the damage done on such occasions will be trivial as 
compared to that of the general flooding of the entire basins under the “ no 
levee ” system. 

The argument that the floods should be permitted to fill the basins in order 
that the sediment might build them up, so as to reach ultimately a height above 
overflow, has no substantial facts to justify it. If it were practicable to deposit 
on the land all the sediment carried by the stream, it would still take a very 
great number of years to raise the general elevation of the 30,000 square miles 
of basins to any tangible extent. Then, too, the deposit could never reach the 
height of the rare, exceptional floods, and if the doctrine is true that the bed 
of the river is rising, the relative height of bed, banks, and flood would remain 
the same, and overflows would always continue. 

There can be no reasonable doubt as to the possibility of constructing an 
effective levee system. Far more elements of uncertainty are involved in many 
engineering problems that have been carried to successful completion. 

The engineers of this progressive age will not falter in their conviction that 
the floods of even the mighty Mississippi can be effectually controlled, and it is 
not likely that a nation with such great resources as ours, which has undertaken 
to make the deserts blossom, will hesitate to contribute generously to a project 
which has for its object the conversion of the vast alluvial basins into fertile 
fields tilled by a prosperous people, happy and contented in homes of plenty. 


Engineer Office, U. S. Army, 

St. Louis, Mo., February 12, 190Jf. 

Hon. Jos. E. Ransdele : 

My Dear Sir : I have just received your letter of the 9th instant requesting 
my views regarding the much disputed question of levees and elevation of 
the river bed. In answer, I beg leave to state my conviction that the levees do 
not permanently raise the bed of the stream. It is of course obvious that, if 
waters, which at flood spread out under natural conditions over a width of 10 
miles, are confined between levees separated by not more than 4 or 5 miles, 
there is bound to be an increase of flood height of the water, a fact which is 
becoming well known; but, at the same time, it must be remembered that this 
raising of the flood surface increases the velocity of the current and gives it 
greater scouring power and greater capacity to carry sediment. So it will be 
found that the total amount of sediment carried to the sea will not he less but 
rather more than if the floods could spread out over wide areas with more 
sluggish current. In fact, I believe that levees increase the flood heights, but 
actually decrease the low-water plane, or, in other words, depress the bed of 
the stream. The River Po, in Italy, is often quoted as an instance of levees 
raising the bed of the stream, and in actually crossing the Po, as I did in 1883, 
it seemed to me that the stream was really artificially elevated above the sur¬ 
rounding country, held in by its earthen walls, but the true condition was not 
what it seemed to be. The river was at flood, and of course the flood surface 



RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


85 


was far above where it would have been under natural conditions, but meas¬ 
urements made about that time, I am told, showed that the bottom of the 
stream was below its original level. 

Hoping that my views are presented clearly, and that my reasons therefor 
may be understood by yourself and the committee, believe me, 

Very sincerely, yours, 

Thos. L. Casey, 

Major , Corps of Engineers, Member Mississippi River Commission. 


Mississippi River Commission, 
Chicago, III., February 12, 190\\. 

Hon. Joseph E. Ransdell, 

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir : I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 9th instant, 
in which you request me to state my views and my reasons for entertaining 
them upon the question, “ Do levees cause the bed of the Mississippi to rise?” 

Persons not familiar with the Mississippi may perhaps wonder why there 
should be any doubt upon this subject—why the facts should not be so well 
known that there can be no room for discussion. The explanation lies in the 
unstable character of the river bed. The bed is composed of an alternating 
succession of bars and pools, all in motion downstream. At one stage the bars 
build up and the pools scour; at another this process is reversed, and there is a 
leveling action. The river also has a motion sideways, due to erosion on one 
side and accretion on the other. Evidently any general law, such as the rais¬ 
ing or lowering of the river bed, if there be such a law, can be detected only 
after prolonged observations and intelligent study. 

The Mississippi River Commission has given much attention to these observa¬ 
tions. In 1894, 1895, and 1896, a complete resurvey of the river where most 
completely leveed was made from the mouth of the White to Donaldsonville, 
La., a distance of 472 miles, and careful comparisons were made with the pre¬ 
vious survey of 1881, 1882, and 1883. Nearly 3,000 cross-sections of the river, 
with about 150,000 elevations, were compared, involving an enormous amount 
of labor. The result was to show no evidence whatever of a rising of the bed. 

On the other hand, the gauge records give some evidence that the bed has 
been lowered by the levees. A careful comparison of the low-water readings 
of ten gauges between Cairo, Ill., and Carrollton, La., was made by Major 
Harrod, for the periods 1872 to 1887, and 1887 to 1902, using the average for 
the sixteen years of each period. As a general rule, the low-water surface was 
at a lower level during the second period than during the first. That there 
was no great difference in the quantity of water flowing is shown by the fact 
that the reading of the Cairo gauge was essentially the same during the two 
periods. 

Theoretically, I should expect the levees to have a tendency to lower the bed 
in some small degree, but that the amount would be so small as to be of no prac¬ 
tical importance. That they should have the effect of raising it, I can not 
conceive. The result of all the observations on the river so far is that there 
has been but little change, and that that little has been in the direction of low¬ 
ering the bed. 

Yours, very respectfully, O. H. Ernst, 

Colonel, Corps of Engineers, 

President, Miss. River Com. 


124 East Twenty-Seventh Street, 

New York City, February 15, 1901/. 

Dear Sir : Your favor of the ,12th is received. My opinion that levees have 
not caused a rise in the bed of the Mississippi is unchanged. 

Very truly, yours, 

C. B. Comstock. 

Mr. Patrick Henry, 

Interstate Mississippi River Improvement. 




86 


RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. 


War Department, 

Office of the Chief of Staff, 

Washington, February 16, 1901f. 

My Dear Mr. Ransdell : I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your kind letter 
of February 15 asking my opinion as to whether the construction of levees 
upon the Mississippi River has a tendency to elevate the bed of the river. 

This subject was treated very exhaustively in 1890 by General Comstock, then 
president of the Mississippi River Commission. The particular subject of your 
inquiry is referred to in General Comstock’s paper, and will be found on page 
3098 of the Annual Report of the Mississippi River Commission, 1890. I concur 
in the opinion .therein expressed, which I have held from the beginning of my 
familiarity with the Mississippi River. 

I do not think it can be doubted that the effect of levees has been to increase 
flood heights; the result at your own home, Lake Providence, exemplifies this in 
a marked degree. It does not necessarily follow that there has been any eleva¬ 
tion of the bed of the river at low stage. I do not believe that there has been, 
nor do I believe there has been a progressive and continuous elevation of the 
bed for any long stretch of the river at any point in its course from Memphis 
through the levee district. 

If you are not familiar with General Comstock’s paper I advise you to consult 
it, because he includes in his examination not only the Mississippi River, but 
the Po, Hoang-ho, and the Yellow River, the most prominent examples of sedi¬ 
ment-bearing streams. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

G. S. Gillispie, 
Major-General, General Staff. 

Hon. J. E. Ransdell, 

House of Representatives. 


o 































































































































































































- 

V 




























































